Power consumption - Page 36

Intel is showing a new home-automation system concept, that is based on their Atom processor, and has a large (11") touch AMOLED display. The whole system is designed to be efficient, hence the Atom processor and OLED display. Intel's site is not consistent about the display size, in one place they say it's 11.25", and in another 11.56". In any case we're not sure who's making the actual OLED but it's probably based on a Sony panel as used in the XEL-1 OLED TV.

In any case, the concept is very nice, and looks great. It uses Zigbee wireless connection to connect to appliances around the home and provide "intelligent home energy management". Each appliance needs to be connected to a low-cost Zigbee transmitted socket in order for this to work. The OLED-based display provides a central control panel with information such as temperature, utility cost, personal messages, home security, a clock, weather, internet access, etc.

Samsung has been showing their 2" flexible OLED for identity cards for a few years now, and this CES is no exception. There's a nice video over at Engadget showing how the OLED is powered by the wireless RFID reader:

The flexible OLED is 2" QVGA 240x320, 260K colors and has 10,000:1 contrast ratio.

GE and Israel's Power Paper will jointly-develop self-powered (battery) OLED Lighting. The project will combine Power Paper's paper-thin, flexible batteries with GE's OLEDs.

GE says that the new OLED products will cost less, be more effective and will be reliable and shock-resistant.

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors has released their first OLED Lighting product, called the ORBEOS. It has a round surface (88mm diameter), is only 2.1mm thick and weights 24g. The efficiency is 25lm/W. The panels are actually available now via OSRAM's site.

OSRAM ORBEUS OLED Lighting panel

The temperature is warm white color (2,800K, CRI up to 80) like an incandescent lamp. The panel can be switched on and off without delay, and is continuously dimmable. It emits no UV or infrared radiation, and does not contain mercury. Its brightness level is usually 1,000cd/m² with power input of less than a watt. In ideal operating conditions it has a lifespan of around 5,000 hours. ORBEOS is available with a frosted glass surface.

There's an interesting story on Philips Lighting plans over at Tech-On, which obviously includes OLED Lighting. Philips are already shipping samples for quite some time (here's our review). Philips say that currently their OLED has an emission efficiency of 10lm/W to 20lm/W.

Philips OLED panel

They have already achieved 80lm/W "in the lab", but it will take at least 3 years to achieve 50lm/W at the production level, and 5 years to go beyond that.

Regulators in California have approved the new energy standards for televisions proposed early in 2009. TV manufacturers will have to make new models that will use 33% less electricity by 2011, and 49% less by 2013. It is estimated that TVs and set-top boxes use about 10% of the residential electricity consumption in California. In the 1990s, it was only about 3-4%.

This is good news for efficient TVs, and already about 300 models are ok by the 2013 regulations. Obviously this is good news for OLED TVs, too, as these are highly efficient of course.

LG Chem is the latest company to start working on OLED Lighting. LG Chem is showing 4 sizes of OLED Lighting panels, in the form of a Mondrian photo:

• 50x70 mm
• 150x20 mm
• 150x30 mm
• 150x150 mm

LG Chem's panels use green and red PHOLED materials made by Universal Display, and SFC's deep-blue fluorescent OLED (UDC and SFC are working together since 2008). The basic structure is Anode-Blue-Intermediate Layer (using LG 101 materials) Green&Red Cathode, and the panels provide various color temperature (this was achieved by changing the thickness of materials and the laminar structure).

 

The OLEDs on display were cold, full white OLEDs, with 20-25lm/W efficiency and a color temperature of 5000-6800K.

LG Chem's plan is to mass produce OLED Lighting products in 2H 2010 and is developing equipment together with Sunic System. LG Chem currently uses 200x200 deposition equipment and pre-process equipment.

NEMO (NEw Materials for OLEDs) is a new EU project focusing on new emitting systems based on soluble small molecules with long lifetime and efficiency. NEMO is led be four companies (coordinated by Merck) and seven research and academic institutions (including the Fraunhofer institute). The project is scheduled to last for 2.5 years, and is funded by the German government with 32 million euros.

Idemitsu Kosan is showing some new OLED lighting prototypes using their own fluorescent and phosphorescent OLED materials. Phosphorescent OLEDs are more efficient than fluorescent ones. In the following photo, the panel on the left has a high-color temperature, and uses both fluorescent and phosphorescent materials (it is targeted mainly for the EU market). The other 3 panels use just fluorescent materials, and have a low color temperature.

Idemitsu has already commercialized their red phosphorescent, and almost commercialized the green one. They still do not know when they'll be able to release a blue color material, currently the lifetime is about 10% of what the clients need.

Here's the data sheet for the OLED materials, where you can see the lifetime and efficiency of each color:

ST Microelectronics announced a "key design win" for its power management ICs for AMOLED displays from a leading manufacturer in Korea (which is probably Samsung or LG).