Back in May 2011 Philips announced that they are investing €40 million in a new OLED lighting production line in Aachen. Today Philips inaugurated the new line - which has been producing OLEDs since Q3 2012 in fact (but it's only official now).
Philips say that this new line is the largest and "most modern" OLED lighting line in the world. The clean-room is approximately 2,000-square meter in size. The new line is adjacent to Philips' pilot line that's been producing OLEDs since 2007. Philips plans to produce all their panels in the old line, but the old one will remain in service - mostly for custom orders or additional capacity if the new line is fully booked.
Philips’ panels are made on glass and come in a variety of shapes and colors: squares, triangles, circles, hexagons and custom-made structured panels. The largest panel that is on sale is the Tall Rectangle at 129.4 x 54.7 mm. Philips' most efficient panel is the Lumiblade Plus (45 lm/W, developed by Konica Minolta) and their brightest panel is the 115 lm GL350.
Lumiblades have been used in several interesting installations in the past two years. For example, last year Deutsche Bank's Berlin office installed a beautiful (and huge) OLED chandelier that has 384 Philips Lumiblade panels. Aston Martin's showroom uses 800 OLED panels hung from the ceiling (this was designed by Jason Bruges Studio). Philips themselves offer several OLED lamps and devices, including the nice LivingShapes Interactive mirror, which has 64 OLED panels and costs €3,490.
Here's our hands on review of two Lumiblade panels, a white dot and a white tall rectangle.
