Illuminating the OLED Lighting Roadmap

Roadmap
The roadmap for progress in improving the capital cost, flexibility and power consumption of OLEDs is now becoming clear and it is good news all the way. Roadblocks of inadequate lifetime, particularly for bright white light, are also being overcome within the new timescales, which are shown below. Little progress is expected in improving the efficiency of incandescent or fluorescent lighting. They are yesterday’s products. As we noted, OLED lighting is already much more efficient than incandescent lighting and it will surpass fluorescent in 2008. Markets will open up for versions on flexible substrates in particular, because installation cost is so low and the format is so versatile and appealing. However, capital cost of long life white versions below that of conventional lights will not be on offer in mass production until around 2016 unless further major breakthroughs are made. In late 2006, OSRAM forecasted that the first major sales of OLED signage will be in 2008, though not with all the intended attributes.