Verbatim-branded OLED lights coming to market

Dan Rogers - 13 May 2010

Mitsubishi Chemical has begun work on OLED lighting manufacturing, and products will be sold via a subsidiary in 2011.

The company is working in partnership with Pioneer, a Japanese producer of consumer electronics products such as home entertainment and in-car technology, through its subsidiary Verbatim

The company announced its collaboration with Pioneer earlier this year, and the Mitsubishi OLED business's general manager, Hiroshi Tomiyasu, elaborated on the company's plans for the OLED lighting market in a recent interview with +Plastic Electronics magazine.

Tomiyasu remarks: 'We will sell products under the Verbatim brand mainly. Verbatim is Mitsubishi's subsidiary company and one of the top brands for media technology - like DVD players - in the world.'

'Mitsubishi is strongly cooperating with Pioneer, which already has a mass-production line for OLED and has mass-production technology.'

OLED products

Verbatim, which exhibited at the Light + Building event in April, is collaborating with Pioneer to create its own brand of OLED products. The announcement of work on manufacturing capacity will create a challenge to other companies interested in this emerging market, as much of what has been achieved in lighting so far has been based on pilot production scales.

Companies such as Philips and Osram have made OLED lighting panels available, but these are mostly aimed at allowing designers and architects to experiment with building interior applications.

However, Verbatim will begin marketing products in the near future, beginning with hybrid devices - though Tomiyasu did not elaborate on the extent of use of OLEDs in such products.

Tomiyasu explains: 'For our first products we will use partial OLED solutions. In a few years we will use OLED solutions fully, which will dynamically reduce costs.'

Technical issues

A significant amount of R&D into OLED lighting has been based around solving the technical issues - such as lifetime and efficiencies - that could limit the technology's commercial appeal. However, Mitsubishi is pushing ahead with manufacturing scale-up in the meantime, assured by what has already been developed.

Says Tomiyasu: 'Of course we have some technical issues to resolve. But we are confident that we can start OLED lighting business in 2011, because of our mass-production technology and OLED solution.'

The emergence of OLED lighting as a target market in Asia is covered in Volume 3, issue 1 of +Plastic Electronics magazine, inlcuding the interview with Mitsubishi's OLED business manager Hiroshi Tomiyasu. To sign up in time for your copy of the next issue visit our subscriptions page, or email publications@pira-international.com to find out more.