Tohoku Pioneer has started mass production of white organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) at a new plant in Aomori Prefecture, according to a story in Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The OLEDs are intended for backlights for mobile handsets, and Tohoku Pioneer plans to begin shipments of white OLEDs to overseas mobile-phone vendors this month. The company is the first to start mass production of white OLEDs in Japan, Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

Ken Werner
Senior Analyst and Editor
of MDTV Retailer

Tohoku Pioneer is indeed a pioneer in the OLED world; in 1998 it produced the first commercial OLED display, which was used for Pioneer car stereo systems. Many Tohoku Pioneer passive-matrix OLED displays have appeared in car stereos since then, and continue to do so.

ELDis, a joint venture established with Sharp and SEL in 2002 to manufacture active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLEDs), was abandoned earlier this year, as was the Sanyo/Kodak AMOLED joint venture. Both efforts were victims of trying to create a high-volume AMOLED market before the materials and processes were ready to support it - and before customers had developed suitable applications. And it didn’t help that both efforts were sponsored by companies whose resources had become strained.

But Tohoku Pioneer’s PMOLED business remains strong, and in entering the white OLED backlight business early, the company may have another winning product. Expected advantages of an OLED backlight unit (BLU) over the LED-and-light-guide BLUs that are typically used in cell phones are much less thickness, lighter weight, and structural simplicity.

We’re looking forward to learning more about the detailed characteristics of these BLUs - including their lifetime, luminance, luminous efficiency, and uniformity - in the near future.