Pioneer, Mitsubishi Chemical Ink OLED Lighting Alliance

By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 2/9/2010

Tokyo - Mitsubishi Chemical and Pioneer disclosed Tuesday that they have entered into an technology and and capital alliance on their OLED lighting businesses, which will strengthen their company relations.

Mitsubishi Chemical said it has decided to enter the OLED lighting business, and is aiming to begin full-scale mass production and launch of illumination appliances in 2011.

Resulting products will produce light systems that are bright, yet easy on eyes, the company said, because OLED lighting does not create a spot or strip of light like electric bulbs and fluorescent lights. The whole panel body emits light evenly across the surface. Brightness and color can be freely controlled (dimness/tone), and panels can be made transparent like a glass window and can be flexible, allowing development of either flat or curved light surfaces.

The technology does not use mercury and can operate on low electricity levels.

Mitsubishi Chemical set target sales from the technology at $335 million (30 billion Japanese yen) for 2015, and $1.1 billion (100 billion Japanese yen) for 2020.

Through the alliance, Mitsubishi Chemical will use OLED lighting panels supplied by Pioneer. Joint research is also planned for printable OLED lighting development and commercialization, the companies said.

To strengthen the strategic partnership, Pioneer will issue Mitsubishi Chemical about $6.7 million (600 million Japanese yen) in new stock through third-party allotment.

According to the statement, both companies are currently performing joint research on OLED lighting panels that use printable hole injecting material (HIM) and new emitting materials.

In line with its goal to start early stage mass production and marketing of new printable emitting materials, Mitsubishi Chemical is moving on with research and development, as well as looking into the commercialization of printable OLED lighting.

Currently, OLED lighting panels are commonly created through a vapor deposition process, which makes it difficult to mass-produce defect-free, large, uniform surfaces. However, Mitsubishi Chemical's printable materials realize the mass production of the world's largest class of lighting area, about 14cm square, with Pioneer's commercial lines, the company said.

Mitsubishi Chemical plans to use OLED lighting panels supplied by Pioneer to launch illumination appliances that make use of the unique benefits of OLED across Verbatim's worldwide sales network starting in 2011.

Mitsubishi Chemical plans to display the world's first dimmable/tone adjustable prototype this year from April 11-16 in Frankfurt, Germany at Light+Building 2010, the world's leading trade fair for architecture and technology.