Konica Minolta Pioneer OLED

Konica Minolta, Inc. (Konica Minolta) and Pioneer Corporation (Pioneer) signed the agreement on organization of joint venture Konica Minolta Pioneer OLED, Inc. in May, 2017 that in to begin work on production of organic LEDs (OLED) for automotive industry. The share of capital investments of each company will make 50%. The general size of the invested means – 490 million yens (about 4.4 million US dollars).

Automobile lighting which will become the main area of work of new joint venture will add a product portfolio of the companies: traditional light sources for indicators and advertizing in which Konica Minolta, and special light sources of Pioneer company for spheres of beauty and health care was engaged earlier. The companies are calculated that entry into the market of flexible light sources on organic LEDs will make a profit of 25 billion yens in the average and long term.

Organic LEDs are even more often applied in spheres, new to technology: in advertizing when light sources are integrated with paper carriers, design of packaging, beauty-illumination where the high color rendering index of OLED is very important. Use for clearance lamps in automotive industry of organic LEDs – quite logical step. Even the smallest and easy autocomponents should not only to look perfectly, but also to make the contribution to increase in the overall energy efficiency of the car and security on the road.

The strategic alliance will integrate the practices of the companies connected with production of LEDs, in particular, the production technology of flexible panels of Konica Minolta and achievement of Pioneer company in the field of mass production of OLED panels and a know-how of OEM business on delivery of electronic components for cars.

OLED panels

In 2011 the first-ever commercial project on technologies of OLED panels of Konica Minolta which all surface was a luminescence source was created. In 2014 the company announced creation of an easy and flexible LED panel thickness about standard sheet on a plastic basis. It became the first-ever panel of this kind with color control function, the thinnest light panel on organic LEDs and also an OLED panel of a white luminescence with the highest luminosity in the world. Thanks to these achievements Konica Minolta became one of leading companies in the industry.

In 1997 the Pioneer company first-ever began mass production and delivery of displays based on organic LEDs. After an output to the market of OLED displays for cars in 2004, the company sold more than 140 million such displays. In 2012 Pioneer began deliveries of the first-ever modules of illumination of OLED with a possibility of a color setting and brightness, and in 2014 – first-ever began mass production and delivery of OLED panels on the basis of technology of wet drawing a light-emitting layer that provided significant decrease in cost of production. LED devices of Pioneer are used in different spheres, from beauty industry to health care.