PIOL, a joint venture between Panasonic Electric Works and Idemitsu Kosan Company in Japan, began shipping OLED lighting panels to local and overseas lighting module and fixture manufacturers this month.

Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting Co., Ltd. (PIOL), a joint venture established this year between Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd. (PEW, Osaka, Japan) and Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan), began shipping high-color-rendering organic LED (OLED) lighting panels to the international markets on September 1.

Also, PEW will ship OLED lighting modules (the OLED panel plus driver circuitry, embedded in a frame) later this year.

To date, significant production volumes of OLED panels and modules for the lighting industry have yet to be shipped due to high cost.

The Panasonic OLED panel is a light source with a minimum color rendering of Ra=90, a panel section as thin as 2 mm and a luminance of 3000 cd/m². The panels luminous efficiency is 30 lm/W (60 lm at 2W), lifetime is 10,000 hours (with 70% lumen maintenance factor) and the correlated color temperature is 3000K.

PEW is scheduled to begin shipping ready-to-embed OLED lighting modules (i.e. the panel with built-in control circuitry) at the end of 2011. The modules feature a thin design (9 mm), narrow frame (11 mm width) and easy-to-replace light sources.

OLED lighting module features

The OLED module can be easily built into thin lighting fixtures that blend into the building and facilities. The module allows the design of thin fixtures with minimal presence.

The area devoted to non-light-emitting sections is minimized to increase flexibility in design. This will enable implementation of smooth multi-light array fixtures, making full use of the homogeneity of the panel surface, says Panasonic.

The luminous efficiency of the module is 21 lm/W with a dimming control range of 10% to 100%.

The light-emitting section of the OLED lighting module can be replaced without the need for tools. The overall size of the lighting module is 102 x 95 x 9 mm, and the light-emitting section is 80 x 80 mm. Weight is 38 grams.

About the Author 

Laura Peters is a Senior Technical Editor with LEDs Magazine.