Nanomarkets released a new OLED lighting report (OLED Lighting Markets 2014) in which they predict that the OLED lighting market will grow into a $1.4 billion market in 2019. Nanomarkets are now more optimistic regarding OLED lighting due to recent manufacturing expansion and improvement in performance.

While currently most of the OLED lighting panels produced was used in development kits for designers, in the next few years Nanomarkets predicts that real commercial OLED luminaries will start to appear. In 2019, revenues from OLED luminaries for homes will reach almost $400 million and office luminaries will reach almost $380 million.

Patent broker ICAP announced that on May 27 it will launch a new sale for an OLED IP package. This is an OLED patent portfolio developed by Japan's Goto Denshi that discloses a technique for OLED encapsulation. The portfolio includes 5 assets - 3 patents (in the US - patent #8,487,532, Russia and Japan) and 2 patent applications (In the US and Japan).

ICAP says that the patents describer a two-layer sealing technique which envelops an OLED display panel with an impermeable resin. ICAP says that this technology (which is applicable for both OLED display and lighting panels) not only provides a good barrier, but is also scalable to large screen sizes and mass production processes. The initial bidding guidance is low to mid 6 figures.

Yesterday it was reported that Sony decided to pull out of the consumer OLED TV market, to focus on UHD LCDs. According to UK's What-HiFi magazine, Sony sent them a statement denied that report.
 

Sony 56-inch 4K OLED TV prototype

Sony's statement reads: "Sony has made no announcement in this regard. Sony continues developing and looking into reliable ways to mass produce OLED displays for consumers while continuing to build experience via providing OLED displays for professional, medical and broadcast use." 

eMagin reported their financial results for Q1 2014. Revenues for the OLED microdisplay maker in the quarter were $6.3 million (down from $8.5 million in Q1 2013, but up from $6.1 million Q4 2013). The company shipped fewer units and also saw a decrease in the average selling price. Net loss in the quarter was $1.6 million (down from a net income of $205,000 in Q1 2013). eMagin has $8.3 million in cash, down from $11 million in the end of 2013.

eMagin XGA096 OLED-XL

eMagin says the the lower revenues were mostly because of the stop order from three customers regarding the wire bond issue. This issue was partially solved. Shipments to one of the customers already resumed last month, and the company expects to resume shipment to the second customer in late June and to the third customer in late July.

Fraunhofer COMEDD is looking to advance flexible OLED lighting device lifetime, and towards that goal the German institute developed flexible OLED lighting panels on flexible glass substrates. COMEDD reports that flexible glass can enable curved panels that has high OLED lifetime - much higher than can be obtained with polymer-based encapsulation and substrate technologies.

Fraunhofer developed those new panels on their own Roll-to-Roll R&D line in collaboration with Von Ardenne (on the development of process equipment) and Nippon Electric Glass (they provided the "G-Leaf" flexible glass rolls). The G-Leaf glass is less than 35 um thick and can be used in roll-to-roll processes.

Update: According to a UK magazine, Sony denies pulling out of the OLED TV market

In December 2013 Sony and Panasonic announced that they canceled their OLED TV joint-development effort. The two Japanese companies said they will continue to develop OLED technologies independently. Now the Japanese Nikkei Asian Review reports that Sony decided to halt their OLED TV development to focus on UHD LCDs.

Sony 56-inch OLED TV Prototype

According to the report, Sony does not see any real demand for OLED TVs any time soon. While they may be right in the very near term (1-2 years), this is a very risky decision because if OLED TVs do take off in 2015 or so as Sony will again be too late to the new TV technology (the same mistake they did with LCDs).According to some reports, Sony aims to enter the OLED TV market using LGD panels, a strategy that didn't quite work out for Sony with LCD panels a few years ago.

In September 2011 the EU launched a new €5 million project called IMOLA (Intelligent light management for OLED on foil applications) with an aim to realize large-area flexible OLED lighting modules with built-in intelligent light management. Philips just sent us this nice video which gives an introduction to OLED Lighting and to IMOLA's objectives here:

The basic idea behind IMOLA is that light intensity can be adjusted uniformly or locally according to the time of day or a person's position - and applications include wall, ceiling and in-vehicle (dome) lighting. Partners in this project include Philips, NXP Semiconductors, Henkel and Israel's Hanita Coatings.

In 2013, Guangzhou New Vision Optoelectronics (New Vision) developed a flexible 4.8" AMOLED display using an Ln-IZO backplane and a polyimide substrate. New Vision now unveiled another flexible AMOLED prototype, this one using a PEN substrate. The company says that they expect flexible OLEDs to be commercialized in the near future.

The new full-color display is 5-inch in size with a thickness of only 0.1 mm and a weigh of less than 5 grams. The radius of curvature is up to 1 cm. New Vision says that PEN is preferable to Polyimide because it's cheaper, it doesn't require the complex preperation process required by PI and it enables transparent panels. The PEN substrate limits the production temperature to 180 C which created a major challenge for New Vision (to deposit the Oxide-TFT backplane at that temperature).

Universal Display reported their financial results for Q1 2014 - and the company had another great quarter. Revenues were $37.8 million (compared to $15 million in Q1 2013) and net income was $4.0 million. This does not include Samsung's license fees which will be $50 million in 2014, and will be paid in Q2 and Q4.

Green emitter sales were $17.2 million (up from $11.6 in Q4 2013, and 4.6 a year ago). Green host sales were $12.4 million (up from $9.3 million in Q4 2013 and 3.1 a year ago). Red emitter sales were $3.9 million (up from $2.8 million in Q4 2013 and Q1 2013). UDC now expects 2014 revenues to reach the high end of its $190 million to $205 million guidance range.

Switzerland based Fluxim, providing leading simulation and measurement technology to the OLED and solar cell industry, announces two product releases and two training events. Following is a sponsored message from Fluxim.

Fluxim is Launching SETFOS 4.0 with a New Light Scattering Module for Assessing the OLED Light Outcoupling Enhancement

After extended development and testing effort, Fluxim is going to release a new module of the simulator SETFOS in the beginning of June 2014 to simulate light scattering in OLEDs and solar cells. Fluxim believes that their customers can strongly take advantage from this major improvement as the new module makes it easy to quantify the impact of light outcoupling enhancement structures. Please write to info@fluxim.com to obtain further information today.