Automotive OLEDs: introduction and industry news - Page 33

I'm happy to announce my second OLED market report, the OLED Automotive Market Report. This report provides a great introduction to OLED display and lighting solutions for the automobile market, and covers everything you need to know about OLED technologies in this niche. This is a great guide for anyone involved with the automotive market - car makers, suppliers and aftermarket solutions.

Reading this report, you'll learn all about:

• What kind of OLED displays are currently adopted in cars
• Why OLED lighting is exciting for car makers
• The future of Automotive OLED display
• OLED concepts and forecasts by BMW, Audi and others

The report package also provides:

• A list of major OLED display makers and their products
• Several OLED lighting roadmaps
• Personal contact details into leading OLED display and lighting makers
• A complete list of OLED car concepts
• Free updates for a year

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.

A couple of weeks ago BMW unveiled a new Series 7 concept car as part of their BMW Vision Future Luxury design approach. The car includes all sorts of new user and display interfaces such as a projected HUD and a control tablet for rear seat passengers.

Earlier last month BMW said that the future lighting technology for their automobiles will be OLED (BMW expects to start selling cars with OLED lighting within 3 years) - and indeed the new concept 7 series uses OLED taillights. The OLED suppliers is Astron Fiamm (owners of the Blackbody consumer OLED brand).

BMW hosted a workshop called "Light Days" which detailed the history, present and future of lighting in automobiles. BMW says that the future lighting technology will be OLED, and they expect to start selling cars with OLED lighting within 3 years.

BMW says that the high homogeneity of OLEDs has several advantages (as you can see in the slide above) - mainly that it enables new styling options, it's efficient and long lasting and can offer high exclusivity. The company showed a prototype taillight design that uses Philips OLEDs. We also know that LG Chem are collaborating with BMW. This design seems pretty similar to Hella's own OLED prototype (which uses LG Chem's panels).

LG Chem had a large presence at L+B 2014, and the company sent us a few photos and a video of their OLEDs in action. In the past few weeks, the company announced new 320x110 mm panels and also the world's largest OLED at 320x320 mm. All of their new panels feature an increased lifetime (to 40,000 LT70) and a high CRI (over 90).

LG Chem also revealed their efficiency roadmap. Currently all their panels feature 60 lm/W. They already developed 100 lm/W panels and these will be released commercially later in 2014. By 2016 the company hopes to reach 140 lm/W. The standard luminance of the company's panels is 3000 cd/m², but they can also supply panels with 5,000 or even 8000 cd/m² (this decreases the lifetime, though).

German based lighting expert Hella showed a new automobile rear light module prototype that uses curved flexible OLEDs. The module uses 28 flexible OLED lighting panels (made by LG Chem) that were bent so each is shaped differently and so it creates a unique 3D structure.

Hella designed this module in collaboration with BMW. Hella says that because OLEDs offer light emitting areas (in contrast to LEDs which are spot lighting) they open new possibilities for lighting in and around a vehicle.

OSRAM already stated in the past that OLED is the next technological development for car lighting, and the company sees OLEDs adopted in series production of new vehicles by 2016. At the L+B exhibition, Osram unveiled a new OLED Module for the automotive market, and the company's OLED chief said that demand for organic solutions from the automotive sector will drive down prices and increase product innovation.

The company are also showing their new panels at the event. Those panels offer 65 lm/W, 15,000 hours lifetime and output about 600 lux. To showcase those new panels, the company unveiled a new pendant luminaire designed by Werner Aisslinger. The luminaire uses 16 OLED panels.

Even though earlier rumors suggested Samsung will adopt an LCD for the upcoming GS5 phone, it was later reported that the GS5 will actually adopt a 5.2" WQHD (2560 x 1440, 560 PPI) AMOLED panel. Today, at a display technology roadmap seminar, Samsung confirmed that indeed they are developing a QHD AMOLED panel.

Samsung will not stop at 560 PPI. The company is actually planning an even higher density panel - a UHD panel that will feature 860 PPI. It will be very hard to justify such a high density on a mobile device, but I guess it's a marketing race that is hard to stop. At any case, it seems that Samsung will be adopting the Diamond Pixel architecture for those high resolution displays.

Update: Futaba asked me to remove the roadmap from OLED-Info...

Futaba is a small OLED producer, mainly making PMOLED panels (including transparent ones) and developing new OLED technologies. Back in October 2011 Futaba bought out TDK's part in their joint OLED company, which is now a subsidiary of Futaba. The company was kind enough to send us their OLED roadmap for the next few years (you can compare it to Futaba's previous roadmap released in 2012).

Futaba developed curved formable (flexible) PMOLEDs which they call film OLEDs. These are formable panels that can be placed on curved surfaces - but they cannot be flexed or bent by the device user. The company showed a 3.5" (256x64) full-color flexible PMOLED prototype at CEATEC 2012. Some of the panels displayed since were touch (capacitive) ones. One of the technology used in film OLEDs is the company's solvent-free liquid desiccant, the OLEDry-S.

Update: these front-lights are most likely LEDs and not OLEDs...

Ford unveiled a new concept car, the S-MAX passenger-van at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The headlights are made from OLED lighting panels:

I'm not sure who makes these OLEDs, but I guess it's either Osram or Philips. From what I can see in those photos, it looks somewhat similar to the 3D OLEDs Philips developed with Merck and Audi a few months ago. Osram is also actively looking at the automobile market for its OLED lighting panels and promised us some new prototypes during the exhibition (they also promised commercial availability by 2016).