OLEDWorks Sees 33X Cost Reduction in OLED Lighting Panels over Next 10 Years December 12, 2016 John Hamer, COO of OLEDWorks presented at the OLED stakeholder’s meeting sponsored by DOE in October. Looking out a few years, he postured that OLED Lighting would be used for applications with low glare, low temperature and a broad spectrum, plus applications that featured the unique characteristics of OLEDs · Thin and light · Flexible designs appealing to basic design instincts The overwhelming issue facing the OLED lighting manufacturers has been and will continue to be the high cost of the panels. Using IDTechEx data, US$/Klm would drop from today’s US$175 to ~US$25 by 2025 and revenues would reach ~US$2.0b. Yole predicted revenues of US$1.5b by 2021. There is general agreement that costs are a critical constraint in reaching a broader market, and he described the need for lower cost and · Organic materials with increased efficacy and lifetime · Electrical interconnections · Encapsulation · Integrated substrates Figure 1 OLED Lighting Panel Cost vs. Market Size Source: Yole He also thinks higher manufacturing yields and higher performing organic material (higher lifetime and efficacy and I assume better blues) are needed. John then showed the DOE’s OLED panel roadmap, which takes the cost from US$3,350/Klm in 2015 to US$100/Klm in 2025. The major step in the cost reduction process is from 2016 to 2018, where it drops from US$1850 to US$550/Klm. (down an extraordinary 70% over 2-years). The basis for this drop is the assumption that LG Display’s 5th Gen fab will be in production and costs will fall consistent with display costs as the fab size increased. One could look at the current 5.5” OLED display costs to get some solace from the analogy. A 5.5” display panel currently costs ~ US$16. A 5.5” lighting panel at 3000 cd/m2, has an active area of .0083 m2 and would produce 80 lumens. |
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Figure 2 Display Panel Costs: OLED vs. LCD, 2016
Source: IHS, OLED-A Since OLED lighting panels do not require an active matrix the comparable cost would be ~50% lower or US$8, which translates to US$100/Klm. So the goal is reachable. Hamer’s conclusion is based on DOE projections as shown below. Our analysis, shows that if OLED lighting panels were made as efficiently as OLED displays, the cost are better than DOE’s 2016 projection of $134/Klm. |
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Figure 3 Estimated Panel Cost by Produced by Traditional Methods
Source: DOE, Norm Bardsley The problem is that the DOE roadmaps continue to shift to the right meaning that every year that passes the goals are not achieved and are pushed out to later years. Let’s hope that with LG’s new Gen 5 fab, the costs will get under control. |
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