OLEDWorks Manufactures the Thinnest and Brightest OLED Panels on the Road

By Dr. Kathleen Vaeth

OLEDWorks is a global leader in the development and production of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology. By combining leading technical experts with the highest standard of manufacturing, OLEDWorks produces rapid product innovation and the world’s best-performing OLED lighting panels for the automotive industry.

OLEDWorks Automotive Lighting Technology

OLEDWorks offers a compelling solution for exterior vehicle illumination that is diffuse, highly uniform, and low in glare, making it particularly well-suited for applications where visibility from a wide angle is crucial, like tail, stop, and turn signals. Unlike traditional lighting options, these properties are inherent to OLED technology and do not require lenses or diffusers to achieve high-quality light. This allows for assemblies on the order of a few millimeters in thickness, facilitating seamless integration into compact spaces and, with bendable panels, following curved surfaces.

The crisp intrinsic segmentation of OLEDWorks’ lighting technology creates opportunities for unique branding and personalization as well as improved communication through rendering of sharp and clear icons and other symbols. OLEDWorks’ lighting technology will pave the way for new form factors for lighting design, closer integration of the various car systems, more effective Car2X communication, and superior safety systems.

The Brightest & Thinnest OLED Lights on the Road

OLEDWorks has achieved notable technological advancements in automotive OLED lighting, ensuring premier quality, reliability, and performance. OLEDWorks first introduced OLED lighting panels to the automotive market in 2021 within the redesigned Audi A8, where digital OLED rear lighting in the tail position came as a standard feature, offering customers up to four different signatures over the A8 model range for unique customization of the vehicle. The OLEDWorks panels exhibit ECE/SAE-certified deep red emission color and an impressive 2000 cd/m² brightness, which sets them apart from panels made by other automotive OLED manufacturers. This is due, in part, to OLEDWorks’ best-in-class multi-stack OLED technology, which allows more active material to be incorporated into the OLED architecture, resulting in higher panel brightness.

OLEDWorks’ ability to manufacture multi-stack OLEDs in high volume allows for further expansion to even more stacks, enabling the brighter illumination required of future stop and turn functions. The result is high OLED panel brightness that sets new industry standards.

Figure 1:  Audi A8 vehicle with OLEDWorks lighting panels

Another remarkable feature of OLEDWorks’ automotive OLED panels is the utilization of thin film encapsulation for enhanced protection of the OLED assembly. This approach offers two distinct advantages. First, the thin nature of the technology results in an OLED panel with an impressively slim profile of less than 1 mm in total thickness, making OLEDWorks’ automotive lighting panels the thinnest OLED panel on the road today. Second, the encapsulation is flexible, enabling unique form factors such as bendable OLED panels that curve with the contours of the vehicle.

Figure 2: OLEDWorks bendable automotive panel with intrinsic segmentation

Premier Quality and Reliability

OLED lighting panels can now be offered as standard taillights due to OLEDWorks’ industry-leading technology development to reach automotive quality and reliability requirements. The panels are designed to last the lifetime of the vehicle and undergo rigorous quality control measures, which ensure each panel meets the strict standards of the automotive industry. The OLEDWorks manufacturing facility is IATF 16949 and ISO 9001, 14001, 45001 certified with full traceability via a factory MES system to ensure that every product meets both OLEDWorks’ and the customer’s expectations of quality and reliability.

The panels can withstand harsh environmental conditions, such as temperature extremes, moisture, and vibrations. An example of the types of conditions that OLEDWorks’ tail panels are tested to is shown in Table 1. Thousands of panels have passed these tests, proving their reliability for automotive lighting applications.

Table 1: Example automotive OLED tail panel reliability tests

As the use of OLED technology continues to grow in the automotive space, OLEDWorks is well-positioned to meet the market demand to support many vehicle programs over the course of their lifetimes and will continue to be the premier OLED automotive lighting supplier.

To see how OLEDWorks can help you meet your specific automotive lighting goals, reach out to our team to learn more.