Lumiotec

Lumiotec announced that on March 31st if will stop producing its OLED lighting panel, to "plan the further performance enhancement of the product" and to plan its future business. Lumiotec will continue to offer its panels (series P06, P09, P11 and P13 panels) while stocks last.

Last month Japan's V-Technology announced it will acquire Lumiotec, which is likely what is behind Lumiotec's decision.

V-Technology announced that it is establishing a new organic electronics subsidiary that will develop a next-generation OLED deposition technology that V-Technology refers to as fine hybrid mask (FHM). Total investment in this new company is estimated at 5 billion Yen ($46 million USD) for the next 2-3 years. The facility is scheduled to be completed in August 2018 and V-Technology will start shipping mask samples in October 2018.

V-Technology's FHM is based on an electroforming method and the masks have a non-tension structure. V-Technology says that the total mask weight will be one tenth of current regular FMM masks, which will lower bending dramatically. V-Technology's already demonstrated an FHM that achieves 738 PPI.

Taiwan's organic chemicals maker Luminescence Technology (Lumtec) launched a new company called Lumlight to develop and produce OLED Lighting based products.

The company's first product is the OLED EyeCare Lamp, which uses an OLED panel to provide a healthy light source. Lumlight launched a crowdfunding campaign with an aim to raise $120,000 HKD (about $15,000 USD).

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, in collaboration with Okamura and Taisei, developed an OLED desk lamp for offices. Taisei is constructing a Net-Zero Energy Building (ZEB) in Yokohama, and the OLED lamps will be installed in this building for testing.

The Japanese government has called for new public buildings to be ZEB-compliant by 2020. Lighting takes up about 20% of the electricity in offices so it is a key target for energy saving efforts.

According to the OLED association, Lumiotec launched a new OLED lighting panel last week. The Lumiotec P09 is a 145x145 mm panel that features 45 lm/W and 4,000 cd/m² maximum luminance. Lumiotec managed to increase the lifetime to 40,00 hours (LT70 at 3,000 cd/m²). The color temperature is 4000K and the CRI is 90.

Lumiotec will start producing the P09 panels and release them in Japan in the first half of 2014.

Ason Technology was established in 2006 in Japan to develop OLED lighting technologies. The company finally unveiled their first OLED lighting panel during the FPD International 2013 exhibition last month.

Ason's panel use Multi-Photo-Emission (MPE), which is a stacked emitter architecture, which is also used by Lumiotec. Usually MPE panels use about 3 layers, but Ason managed to stack 10 or more emitting layers which enables them to reach a very high brightness and CRI. Ason also developed their own diffusion reflection layer so that the emitted color does not change even when viewed from different angles.

Feel Lab is a new Japanese company that produces OLED lamps. The company launched their first two products with some unique designs. The first one is the PACO desk lamp which is a desk lamp that is made from a magnetic wood-coated base, one OLED panel and one transparent panel (non illuminated). You can change the location of the panels (they clip magnetically to the base).

The panel used in this lamp is Lumiotec's P04. It's a square panel 97.6 x 97.6 mm in size that features 40 lumens brightness, 10 lm/W and a color temperature of 2800K. The Desk Light is now available in Japan for ¥33,600 (about $336 USD). Here's a nice video showing this interesting lamp in action:

GLOLED unveiled their first product, the Vuucu OLED lighting device. The Vuucu (designed by Keiji Akiba) is an atmospheric lamp that uses a single OLED lighting panel and a folding transparent acrylic board. As you can see in the video ad below, Vuucu can be setup in several methods, including a bedside light or a "penlight" in a hotel reception or bar:

The OLED panel is made by Lumiotec. This is their P05 module which is an all-phosphorescent panel taht features 40 lm/W and 3,000cd/m².

Lumiotec announced new "natural white" OLED lighting panels (P06 panels) that feature the world's highest color rendering index (Ra93*1, a CRI of over 90). This is very close to natural light, and Lumiotec targets high-end retailers and museums. The panels come in five different sizes (up to 14.5x14.5 cm in size) and cost between ¥13,000 ($165) and ¥40,000 ($508).

The panels feature an efficiency of 28 lm/W, and Lumiotec told us that they use a hybrid design, comprising of both fluorescent and phosphorescent materials (provided by UDC). We do not know what is the exact mix. Lumiotec signed their license agreement with UDC back in April, and are already producing pure-phosphorescent panels, the P5, which feature 40 lm/W.

The Fraunhofer Institute first announced their Tabola OLED lighting panels back in October 2010, with plans to release them in Q1 2011. We haven't heard anything since (and I assumed the project was scrapped) - but last week I got a nice surprise in the mail: three sample panels (two transparent, one structured). The Fraunhofer are now producing sample panels and have actually started to ship these cool transparent Tabola OLEDs to customers now - which makes these the first transparent OLED lighting panels on the market. Read on for our hands-on review.