Panasonic - Page 10

Vossloh-Schwabe (owned by Panasonic Electric Works) unveiled a new prototype OLED+LED luminaire. The OLEDs are of course provided by Panasonic themselves (or actually PIOL), and are color tunable:

PIOL is already shipping OLED panels, but this is the first time we hear of any color-tunable ones from the company, these are not available to purchase yet as far as we know. Update: according to one of our readers, the LEDs are tunablem but the OLEDs aren't.

There are reports that Panasonic decided to establish a Gen-6 OLED TV pilot production line in their Himeji LCD plant. The investment will total around ¥20-30 billion ($245-370 million). In December 2011 it was reported that Panasonic is working on an 8.5-Gen Pilot R&D line at Himeji. After CES, Pansonic's president confirmed that they are working towards OLED TVs.

According to the new reports, Panasonic hasn't decided on their mass production plans yet, but it seems that in order to avoid the massive investment required they will collaborate with another manufacturer at that stage.

Panasonic released a nice video from L+B 2012, showing their LED and OLED technologies. Panasonic is now using the ELeaf brand for their OLED panels. The OLED part starts at 1:34 on the video below:

Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting (PIOL), a joint-venture between Panasonic Electric Works (PEW) and Idemitsu Kosan is already shipping OLED panel samples. A short while ago PEW announced that they developed the world's most efficient OLED modules (128 lm/W).

Panasonic's president Fumio Ohtsubo says that Panasonic is indeed developing an OLED TV, and hopes to release it in 2012. In fact Panasonic hopes they won't be "too late" in this market. Last month it was reported that Panasonic is working on an 8.5-Gen Pilot R&D line.

Back in 2009, Panasonic teamed up with Sumitomo to jointly-develop OLED TVs, based on Sumitomo's PLED materials and technology. We haven't heard anything about this collaboration since, so we do not know whether Panasonic will attempt to produce SM-OLED or P-OLED based TVs.

According to new reports, Panasonic started to build a new 8.5-Gen OLED TV pilot production plant in Himeji, Japan. The company has already ordered some of the equipment. Panasonic's Himeji plant is currently producing LCDs (apparently it has a capacity of 810,000 monthly TVs).

Reportedly, the investment in this stage will not be large as this will be a small pilot line - Panasonic currently only wants to do some R&D and testing there. The company still needs to assess the business model. But its clear that the Japanese maker does not want to leave the emerging OLED TV business to its Korean competitors...

Panasonic decided to return to the global mobile phone market - and announced the first phone it will market worldwide - an ultra slim Android phone with a 4.3" qHD AMOLED display. This phone (which doesn't have a name yet) will be launched in Europe in March 2012 and later hopefully in the US and Asia.

Panasonic Electric Works (PEW) announced that they will provide next-generation lighting (LEDs and OLEDs) to be used in a new exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, Japan (MOMAK). The exhibition ( "Takeshi Kitamura: Master of Contemporary Weaving") will be illuminated by ten OLED modules and thirty LED lighting fixtures.

This is a pilot project - the purpose of which is to verify the future potential of OLED lighting in museums. According to Panasonic, museum exhibitions require high color-rendering and low UV and IR rays (which can damage artwork). PEW says they expect next generation lighting to be adopted in museums as the main form of illumination.

Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting (PIOL) signed a license agreement with Global OLED Technology (GOT) - LG's company which acquired all of Kodak's OLED business in 2009. PIOL now has the right to use some of GOT's OLED lighting patents and will pay a running royalty fee. Idemistu Kosan owns 32% of GOT (the rest is owned by LG) and 49% of PIOL.

PEW OLED Lighting panels

PIOL started shipping OLED lighting panel samples last month. The company also signed a license agreement with UDC.

Panasonic Electric Works announced that they developed a new highly efficient OLED device - featuring 128 lm/W efficiency. This was achieved using a semi-spherical highly-refractive lens to enhance light extraction. The OLED panel is small - only 2x2 mm, and according to Panasonic this is the world's most efficient white OLED.

PEW says that in order to achieve this high efficiency, they inserted a light extraction layer composed of a highly-refractive material between the emissive layer (EML) and the glass substrate. The back side uses a high-reflectivity metal material. Detailed calculations were performed to minimize the internal reflection - this doubled the light extraction efficiency to 40%. This panel uses all-phosphorescent materials, and PEW says that this technique is actually similar to the technique used by Universal Display when they developed the 102 lm/W device back in 2008.

Panasonic Electric Works (PEW) released some very interesting news today regarding their OLED Lighting project. First of all, they announced that Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting (PIOL), their joint-venture with Idemitsu Kosan will start shipping OLED lighting panels tomorrow (September 1st) - to local and international markets. Those rather small (80x80mm), thin (2mm) and light (38g) OLED panels will feature no less than Ra90 color rendering (they say it's the world's highest) and 3,000 cd/m² - the world's brightest panels. The efficiency is 30 lm/W and lifetime (D70) is 10,000. The temperature is 3,000K (like a regular light bulb).

PEW itself will start offering OLED lighting modules in December 2011 - which will include the OLED panel, a frame and a built-in control circuit. PEW says that these modules will be "easy-to-embed" and will have a narrow frame design (11mm maximum width). You will also be able to replace the OLED panel in the modules in a simple way.