A new joint venture (JV) in Dresden, Germany, that will make OLED lighting and signage modules could bring its first products to market in 2010.
Niche lighting, such as decorative and desk lamps, as well as indicators for industrial and office space are some of the applications Ledon OLED Lighting is targeting.
The JV is an open OEM fabrication company set up by lighting company Zumtobel Group in Austria and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Germany's largest applied research organisation.
Ledon OLED Lighting will take OLED panels supplied by developers such as Philips and Osram and integrate them with fixtures to make modules.
Potential customers include signage and luminaire companies as well as lighting designers.
Ledon OLED Lighting will work closely with TridonicAtco, Zumtobel's lighting components and LED modules and systems business. As a leading OEM supplier, TridonicAtco mainly serves luminaire makers around the world including Zumtobel and its UK subsidiary Thorn Lighting.
Close by is an OLED fabrication line, within the Centre for Organic Materials and Electronic Devices Dresden (COMEDD) at Fraunhofer IPMS. So Ledon OLED Lighting is in a good strategic position, able to work with potential customers that lease the line to produce OLED panels, take these panels and turn them into modules and supply them to companies that make luminaires, which include Zumtobel.
Zumtobel is a majority stakeholder in the venture. In Germany companies such as Merck and Novaled are potential material suppliers for OLED lighting supplied by the joint venture.
Between 10-15 staff will work at Ledon OLED Lighting. Joerg Amelung, who whilst at Fraunhofer IPMS developed touch-control OLED lighting and has been instrumental in setting up the pilot line, will be MD of Ledon OLED Lighting. He says: 'We know everything about OLEDs through our work at Fraunhofer and we will be able to use this knowledge to create customised and standardised OLED lighting.'
In Japan, OLED lighting supply chains are also beginning to take shape. A few months ago, professor Junji Kido, who set up Lumiotec with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and other industrial partners to make OLED lighting panels, set up a new company that will make OLED lighting modules. It will be based close to Lumiotec in Yamagata Prefecture where Kido is also a professor at Yamagata University.