Kaneka

The OLED Association reports that Kaneka is seeing a market for OLED lighting panels in manufacturing sites, for visual inspection. The company is currently marketing such solutions in Japan, and the company says that OLED lighting can help detect defects on surface of parts, and it helps to lessen the burden on inspector eyes.

Kaneka says that it has seen defects reduced by 50% by using an OLED system instead of an LED system - at a brightness that is only 10% compared to the brightness of the LED system. It is seeing success in this market and the company's Q2 2020 panel output volume (at its OLED Aomori subsidiary) was up 10X compared to Q2 2019. The company is producing 3.54x3.54 inch OLEDs for this market.

Kaneka introduced a new OLED lighting fixture, the Kumiko - designed by lighting designer Michiru Tanaka. This is a high-tech decorative update to a traditional Japanese patterned woodwork.

The Kumiko is a fully-customizable modular tile system that can be vertically-mounted on a surface or built into complex architectural designs. The Kumiko panels offer diffused light that looks like staned-glass windows. The panels have a mirror surface when not in use. Kaneka did not disclose the technical specification of these Kumiko panels.

Towards the end of 2014 it was reported that Kaneka developed a new OLED panel that achieves a lifetime of 50,000 hours, and the company started producing such panels shortly after. It turns out that Kaneka demonstrated the new panels at the Euroluce 2015 tradeshow in Europe.

Kaneka had several panels on display - in three different sizes (80x80 mm, 100x100 mm and 143x23 mm) and five different colors (white, amber, blue and green). All panels are 1.05 mm thick and feature 50,000 hours of lifetime.

Last month it was reported that Kaneka developed a new OLED panel that achieves a lifetime of 50,000 hours, almost double from the company's current OLEDs. Now it is reported that Kaneka already started producing these new OLEDs, and samples have been sent to some customers for evaluation.

Kaneka further reveals that the 50,000 hours refers to LT70 (i.e. until the brightness falls to 70% of its original value). They measure at 3,000 cd². As their previous panels had a lifetime of about 17,000 hours (LT70), this means they actually almost tripled the lifetime. This improvement was achieved by optimizing the device structure, and a more accurate thin-film deposition process.

According to a news report from Japan, Kaneka developed a new OLED panel that achieves a lifetime of 50,000 hours, almost double from the company's current OLEDs. The panel is 8x8 cm in size and 1 mm thick.

Kaneka has a small production line with an annual capacity of about 20,000 panels. The company plans to expand the production capacity with an aim to halve the manufacturing costs. Kaneka plans to achieve OLED sales of ¥50 billion (around $450 million) by 2020.

Universal Display announced that Kaneka signed an OLED technology license agreement. UDC granted license rights to manufacture and sell phosphorescent OLED lighting products. Kaneka will use UDC's PHOLED materials in their OLED lighting devices.

Kaneka has been developing OLED lighting panels for a long time. The company had plans to start offering OLED panels back in 2011, and showed dimmable 20 lm/w panels in five colors (warm white, red, orange, blue and green). Back in 2011 the company said those panels cost around ¥2 million (approx $24,000) per square meter - and they hoped this will drop to ¥50,000 ($600) or less by 2020.

Update: it turns out that Kaneka's installation at the Milano art show in April 2011 used 2,500 OLED lighting panels - which makes it the largest OLED lighting insatllation ever, and makes OSRAM's Qube pale in comparison... Thanks for tip Tomoko!

OSRAM unveiled a beautiful new OLED installation at the Qubique Berlin Tempelhof 2011 exhibition, which uses over 1,400 OSRAM round Orbeos panels. It was designed by Labme, OSRAM's new open source OLED lighting design platform.

I think this is the largest OLED lighting installation ever produced, replacing Philip's Living Shapes OLED wall installation which had 1,152 Lumiblade panels. But the amount of panels is still small compared to Mitsubishi's 6-meter OLED GeoGlobe which uses 10,362 PMOLED displays. Anyway, here's a nice photo of the Qube in the making:

Update: according to some articles, Kaneka is using 2,500 OLED panels in their installation - which makes this the largest OLED lighting installation to date...

It seems that OLED lighting is the thing to see in the Milano art show. After we've seen some nice installations from Lumiotec, Panasonic and Verbatim, here comes Kaneka, with a massive ceiling installation:

Kaneka's dimmable OLED lighting panels come in five different colors (warm white, red, orange, blue and green). The company is already accepting orders in Japan, although it's not clear when they plan to start shipping samples.

Japan's OLED lighting fair started in March 8th, and we got some interesting OLED Lighting news. NEC lighting is showing several OLED lighting lamps using their upcoming panels - which will be 10x10cm ones offering 60lm/W efficiency - which is actually very good. The company plans to commercialize them in fiscal 2011 (which ends of March 2012). NEC is using UDC's PHOLED materials, which explains the relativly high efficiency.

NEC OLED lighting

Panasonic Electric Works is another company that's developing OLED lighting panels based on UDC's materials, and now we hear that they too plan to commercialize their panels in 2011. We don't have any technical details on those panels yet.

Kaneka announced that it will start accepting orders for OLED lighting panels on March 22nd, 2011 in Japan (and later in April in Europe). Kaneka will offer OLED square panels in five colors (warm white, red, orange, blue and green). The panels will be dimmable (in the range from 1,000cd/m² to 5,000cd/m²).

Kaneka's OLED panels will cost around ¥2 million (approx $24,000) per square meter - and the company believes that the price will drop to ¥200,000 ($2,400) next year and to ¥50,000 ($600) or less by 2020. Production capacity in 2011 will be 10,000m² - and this will grow to 100,000m² in 2015. Kaneka panels will not be very efficient - around 20lm/W and will offer around 10,000 hours lifetime. But the company plans to improve this to about 60lm/W and 25,000 by 2014.