Mitsubishi Chemical and Pioneer have been jointly developing OLED lighting technologies for a long time, including printed OLED panels. The companies are currently producing OLED lighting panels in which the bottom layer is coated and the emissive layer and the top layers are deposited by evaporation in vacuum (VTE).
Now the two companies presented a prototype panel in which both the bottom layer and the emissive layer were coated (the top layer was still deposited using VTE). The companies say this new process will reduce the cost of the panel to 10% compared to current OLEDs due to improved material utilization. They also say that the new panels will feature much longer lifetimes.
The companies plan to start producing OLED panels that feature 30,000 lifetime hours (LT70) at 2,000 cd/m2 luminance, aiming to establish a testing facility soon and commercialize this technology for mass producing in 2014. The companies already unveiled such a printed panel in 2011, but the new panel offers a much better performance. The 2011 panel featured a lifetime (LT50) of 20,000 hours at 1,000cd/m2 luminance.
In March 2013, Verbatim announced the 3rd-Gen Velve color-tunable OLED lighting panels. Those panels feature an efficacy of 51.6 lm/W and a brightness of 2,000 cd/m2. The panels weigh 193 grams and the active area is 123x123 mm.
