The history of organic light emitting diodes, or OLEDs, date back to 1987, when Ching Tang and Steven Van Slyke, two chemists at Kodak, invented the technology. It took a lot of research and hard work, but OLEDs have become a mainstream technology in displays, TVs and smart phones.

There are many other opportunities for OLEDs. For example, automotive displays and taillights are now starting to use OLED displays and lighting. OLEDWorks, which was formed by Kodak executives in 2010, is leading the way in the OLED lighting field, most notably the automotive market, where it has supplied OLED taillights to major car manufacturers. During CES 2024, OLEDWorks launched its Atala brand, which will concentrate on the automotive market and the new opportunities that await.

OLEDWorks’ OLED technology is already featured on cars, such as the Audi8, and there’s more to come.

“The enhanced Audi A8 showcases our Atala OLEDs as a standard feature,” Kathleen Miller, director of marketing, OLEDWorks, said. “Although we cannot disclose more details at this time, we are working with major automotive manufacturers on every continent to include Atala technology within their vehicles. This may be rear lighting, but may also include other exterior, interior, or badging applications.”

The History of OLEDWorks

OLEDWorks was founded by Dr. Michael Boroson and Dr. John Hamer, two OLED technical experts from Kodak, and CEO David DeJoy, an experienced entrepreneur and business leader in Rochester, NY, with a proven track record of leading companies through start-up and into profitability. They were joined by former colleagues from Kodak, which had exited the OLED field.

“Nine additional experts from Kodak joined OLEDWorks to form a small but determined team with decades of OLED research, development, and manufacturing experience,” Miller said. “They had also generated hundreds of patents in OLED technology among them, ensuring that the technology would continue to develop after Kodak dismantled the OLED business unit.

OLEDWorks worked on its OLED technology, then made a key move when it acquired Philips OLED division.

“For the first four years of the company, OLEDWorks dedicated itself to R&D efforts as it slowly grew its team of technical and business experts,” added Miller. “In April of 2015, OLEDWorks acquired the Philips OLED division along with their intellectual property, state-of-the-art production facility in Aachen, Germany, and a core team of OLED engineers, business experts, and technicians. This acquisition catapulted OLEDWorks production capabilities and brought together the expertise and entrepreneurial spirit of the Rochester-based team with the technical precision and manufacturing experience of the team in Germany.”

Miller noted that shortly after the Philips acquisition, OLEDWorks expanded its research and development to include automotive OLED lighting, a transition that would require more rigorous technology performance and stringent reliability standards and testing. This move marked the beginning of OLEDWorks’ entry into commercialized automotive lighting.

Today, OLEDWorks continues to expand its team of experts who are dedicated to the advancement of the company and its technology.

“Our team has grown to over 200 employees between our R&D facility in Rochester, NY, and our precision manufacturing facility in Aachen, Germany, with further growth in the coming years,” Miller said. “The OLEDWorks manufacturing facility is IATF 16949 and ISO 9001, 14001, 45001 certified, with full traceability via a factory MES system.” 

Creating the Atala Brand

By creating the Atala brand for the automotive market, OLEDWorks can provide more focused attention to its automotive customers. Miller observed that Atala OLED technology is suited to the unique needs and requirements of the industry.

“It offers the brightest, most reliable, and longest lasting OLED lighting on the road,” said Miller. “Atala offers complete design freedom with the desired number, size, and shape of segments and the size and shape of panels—without the restrictions seen in LED displays. There can be tens, hundreds, or thousands of individually addressable, high-contrast segments in a panel profile of 1 millimeter or less.

“Designers can dream big and tailor displays based on desired style and functionality,” added Miller. “Atala panels can be customized to have the segmentation and luminance required for each location and function on the vehicle. Highly segmented Atala OLED lighting also enhances road safety, as highly uniform segments/pixels with sharp, high-contrast edges and narrow to invisible gaps enable homogenous light signatures.”

It has taken a while and a lot of testing, but there is now significant growth in the use of OLEDs on automobiles.

“Atala OLED technology is communicable, adaptive, ambient, and flexible,” Miller said. “These qualities make it well-suited to the needs of the rapidly evolving automotive industry, now and in the future.

“In support of future growth in the use of OLEDs in cars, Atala lighting’s primary advantages lie in its unparalleled homogeneity and segmentation capabilities,” she continued. “There is currently no other technology that can come close to the lighting quality that these OLEDs offer. With Atala OLEDs, you can offer uniform, elegant lighting while also providing sharp, clear, animation capabilities—all within the same panel.”

Taillights and More

The Audi8 taillights are a great example of OLEDs being used in taillights, and there other areas in cars and trucks where OLEDs are ideal.

“Atala OLED lighting is a great solution for any lighting that would benefit from uniform, homogenous light,” Miller observed. “We already have Atala technology in development for turn and stop applications, opening the door for a complete OLED rear combination light. Additionally, Atala is a great option for badging with an ultra-thin profile and the ability to perfectly illuminate the logo itself, without any light spill that could cause the logo to appear blurry. Other colors, such as cyan, are also in development.”

OLED lighting has already been used in interior projects for other industries, such as commercial and residential illumination, because of its soft and glare-free quality, making Atala an ideal solution for interior automotive lighting.

“Atala technology is ultra-thin (1 millimeter thick or less) and cool to the touch, making it simple to integrate within tight interior spaces or fragile materials like fabrics and wood,” said Miller. “And with its full dimmable range and segmentation capabilities, interior automotive lighting can be styled and customized to the experience that the driver prefers.

“Our flexible panels can seamlessly integrate into various parts of a vehicle, from stylish taillights to futuristic dashboard displays,” Miller pointed out. “As cars become sleeker and more streamlined, Atala products by OLEDWorks will play a pivotal role in optimizing available interior space.”

Part of the reason for this growth is that OLED technology has improved in recent years.

“Automotive OLED technology is becoming increasingly communicable and adaptable to meet industry demands,” Miller said. “Automotive designers are eager to take advantage of all the unique characteristics of OLED lighting and can soon take full advantage of OLEDs manufactured with flexible glass. Atala lighting is highly customizable, can project light in ways incandescent and LED lighting cannot, and allows for improved aesthetics and unique options for design and brand differentiation and with a flexible form factor.

“First generation Atala light panels only had a few segments (around four to six segments to be exact),” Miller added. “Second generation Atala panels are typically 40 to 60 segments, and the generation of panels being manufactured today can reach hundreds to thousands of segments in an ultra-thin panel profile. This opens the door for design flexibility and communication options, not to mention the improved safety capabilities. Color options are widely accessible in reds, deep reds, ambers, and variations of white.”

Other Markets for OLEDs

Outside of automotive, OLED lighting is suited to a range of applications close to the user, such as in overhead aircraft cabin lighting, safety lighting in rail cars, automotive lighting, or emerging biomedical applications.

One of its key advantages is that is better for the environment, with reduced energy consumption that even rivals that of inorganic LEDs in certain applications that incorporate a high OLED stack approach (e.g., Brite family of OLED lighting).

“OLED panels are extremely lightweight, thin, and can be made into nearly any shape, offering unparalleled design flexibility,” said Miller. “OLEDs also boast significantly lower heat output compared to LEDs, eliminating the need for heat sinks that add weight and thickness to LED designs.

“These features deliver user benefits in a variety of settings, while advancements in segmentation and other areas of OLED design hold the potential for increased customization across both current and future applications,” Miller added.

Miler pounted out that there is also increasing interest in high-performance OLED technology for augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) applications.

“OLEDWorks develops innovative and cost-effective multi-stack OLED microdisplay solutions,” Miller noted. “The same specialized production equipment that we use in our Aachen, Germany, precision manufacturing facility to produce our OLED panels for general lighting and automotive lighting can be used for the low-cost, high-volume manufacturing of our OLED microdisplays.

Miller said that the future is bright for OLEDWorks, as the company continues to add to its capabilities.

“At OLEDWorks, we are always pushing the boundaries to improve and expand upon our product offerings,” Miller concluded. “Within our Atala automotive product line, we are looking to increase the number of segments while decreasing segment size for more display-like automotive panels. We are developing even more road-ready color options, segment shapes and sizes, flexible profiles, and energy efficient technologies—while also keeping costs competitive.”