WRT (With Respect To) Technology Thorough Analysis, Actionable Information

In 2009 Philips and now OSRAM have launched new Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) lighting products extending their efforts to deliver greener, energy efficient lighting.  Philips’ Lumiblade lamp and OSRAM’s new ORBEOS lighting panel are the first commercially available OLED lamp products offering lighting designers the opportunity to explore and adopt this new form of light source.  The ORBEOS OLED panel (below right) has an 80mm diameter lighting area, is 2.1 mm thick, and offers a luminous efficacy of 25 lm/W. 

Now that we have a number of OLED lamps of various shapes and sizes, it will be interesting to see if lighting designers respond with creative yet saleable OLED lighting fixtures.

OSRAM have set out their case for OLED lighting in an interesting slide presentation (Note: PDF).  Included in their presentation are several OLED lighting fixture designs (examples below) that were entries in the 2009 PPML OLED design contest.  The PPML OLED design contest provides a useful glimpse of designers’ ideas on applying OLED lighting.  OSRAM’s presentation includes a slide describing their market development outlook for the OLED market for high end to high volume applications from 2009 through 2016 and beyond.  And this is where it gets interesting.

OLED lighting research and development have been ongoing in Europe, the US, and Asia since early in the present decade.  European lighting firms Philips and OSRAM are working in government sponsored consortia with European universities and supply chain participants (BASF, Merck, Applied Materials, Novaled and others) to commercialize OLED lighting and reach mass production scale.  Corresponding efforts have been ongoing in the US under the auspices of the US Department of Energy’s Solid State Lighting Program.  Japan has a number of firms conducting OLED lighting materials and device development with companies including Lumiotec and Konica Minolta planning to begin mass production of OLED lamps in 2010 and later.  Until recently, the South Korea OLED display leaders Samsung and LG have not appeared to be addressing the OLED lighting market.

This situation is changing.  Samsung Mobile Display in 2009 has begun showing lighting prototypes as shown in the photo below (left) from the May 2009 SID conference.  Moreover, LG Chem has also begun to show OLED lighting panel prototypes (below right) and is reported to have plans to begin OLED lighting mass production in 2010 or 2011.

The competitive landscape for OLED lighting is beginning to take shape.  Multiple European and Asian firms are taking a firmer position on OLED lighting mass production.  The US DOE program has identified the manufacturing issues for OLED lighting mass production in its September 2009 Solid State Lighting Manufacturing Roadmap.

Although some large US headquartered companies including Kodak and GE have substantial OLED lighting related R&D programs, only GE has stated an intention to enter OLED lighting manufacturing.  Looking forward, we see a bright future for efficient solid state lighting.  And we will be looking to the above mentioned industry leaders and their supply chain partners for further progress toward mass production of OLED lighting.

Luminus Devices, on March 17, announced that they have raised $72 Million in a new round of financing. The Luminus press release states: “The investor syndicate was led by Boston-based Braemar Energy Ventures and included a number of other funds, notably San Francisco-based CMEA Ventures and Washington, D.C.-based Paladin Capital Group, which are similarly focused on energy and environmentally friendly technologies. In addition, all of Luminus’ previous investors participated in the financing.”

Luminus has marketed their PhlatLight^® light emitting diodes (LEDs) primarily as a long-lived replacement for projection display lamps, and as a “greener,” mercury free and more efficient, backlight for liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and televisions. In announcing the recent added investment, Luminus has signaled that they will now also be targeting the general illumination market for efficient solid state lighting.

As we have discussed previously, LEDs for solid state lighting with efficacies greater than current fluorescent lighting are now being reported and will soon reach market. Some solid state lighting startups (e.g. Color Kinetics) have already reached the IPO stage, and some of the large lighting players including Philips have already begun acquiring smaller promising solid state lighting firms (Color Kinetics, Lumileds).

We expect additional startup funding as well as further acquisition activity in the solid state lighting space. The substantial new funding just received by Luminus brings the total VC investment in the company to $139 Million to date and brings attention to the question of a profitable exit strategy. As we watch the development of the solid state lighting industry, we expect to identify several good opportunities for investment as the industry unfolds.

A new forecast presented by the US Department of Energy (DOE) shows that solid state lighting development is progressing even faster than predicted. Review of the 2008 DOE Solid-State Lighting R&D Workshop entitled “Transformations in Lighting” held January 29-31, 2008 in Atlanta, GA reveals an important new trend in solid state lighting development. Fred Welsh speaking at the workshop stated, “LED efficacies far-surpassed our projections.”

We have plotted data from the workshop and show comparisons of DOE forecasts for progress in light emitting diode (LED) solid state lighting (SSL) in Figures 1 and 2 below.

Figure 1: Forecast Trend for Luminous Efficacy of LED SSL Laboratory Results (Source: US DOE)

Figure 2: Forecast Trend for Luminous Efficacy of LED SSL Results for Commercial Warm White Lamps (Source: US DOE)

Figure 1 and 2 compare DOE’s forecasts for LED SSL performance (luminous efficacy) for both Laboratory (Figure 1) and Commercial Warm White (Figure 2) lamps as of March 2007 and as reported at the Atlanta Workshop in January 2008. Both Figures also show the efficacy range of fluorescent tubes and compact fluorescent lamps. This comparison of SSL performance forecasts made only 11 months apart is striking. Moreover, the more recent forecast reflects a more realistic view of how technologies advance.

The straight line (linear without upper bound) increase in efficacy shown in the March ’07 forecast of Figures 1 and 2 is clearly not realistic but reflects the near linear advance of performance during the early development of a technology. The forecast from January ’08 illustrates that more rapid than previously forecast progress has in fact occurred and is forecast to continue through 2015. The updated forecast more realistically reflects that technology improvements can be rapid in “early days” but will trend asymptotically toward physical limits as the technology matures.

All in all, this is a good news story for the solid state lighting industry. LEDs are improving even more rapidly than some had forecast. No doubt, this rapid progress is due to the R&D support and focus provided by the DOE program, and even more by efforts that businesses have committed to make energy efficient solid state lighting a reality. As strong progress is made on LED lamp improvements, focus is also moving on to include the vitally important issue of the performance of these lamps in actual luminaire applications. Clearly, we are approaching a time when energy saving lighting will be come a reality. As consumers and governments adopt the notion that solid state lighting will lead to both energy conservation and cost reductions, businesses in the SSL industry will see attractive valuations and opportunities.