Business News
Group Headed by MHI, ROHM, Toppan Printing and Mitsui & Co., Establish Joint Venture to Assess Business Viability Of Lighting-use Organic EL Panel
Wednesday 28. May 2008 - A group headed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI), ROHM CO., LTD., Toppan Printing Co., Ltd., and Mitsui & Co., Ltd., today jointly established Lumiotec Inc. to assess the business viability of organic electroluminescence (OEL) panels for lighting applications. The joint venture plans to sell sample panels from the spring of 2009. A full-scale system for the commercial production and marketing of the panels will be set up once business viability of the panels is confirmed.
The establishment of Lumiotec Inc., which will actively promote the realization of the OEL panel business for lighting applications, was made possible by bringing together the technologies and resources of each of the founding companies of the joint venture. Specifically, through provision of the sample panels, the venture will pursue new applications for OEL panels and explore the potential for new demand in addition to replacing conventional lighting devices while accelerating enhancements of the panel’s performance. Initially, the venture will focus primarily on the assessment of the OEL lighting panel business viability. The company is the first in the world dedicated to the OEL lighting panels business.
The joint venture is capitalized at 1,400 million yen (common stock and capital reserve). MHI furnished 51% of the requisite capital, and the remaining equity investment was shared by ROHM (34.0%), Toppan Printing (9.9%), Mitsui & Co. (5.0%) and Junji Kido (0.1%). Hisao Shigenaga, Deputy General Manager of MHI’s Machinery and Steel Structures Headquarters, concurrently serves as the president of the venture, which has its head office in Yonezawa City in Yamagata Prefecture. The company will begin operations with 20 employees.
The OEL panel has advantageous features that neither conventional light sources, such as electric light bulbs and fluorescent tubes, nor light-emitting diodes (LED) provide, and therefore is expected to be a promising next generation lighting source. The advantageous features of OEL panels include:
1. OEL panels are light and thin and can create a new living environment through new, previously unavailable lighting designs
???and displays in residential houses, offices, stores and transporting vehicles, such as aircraft and trains.
2. The OEL panels emit an even and uniform soft light free of ultraviolet rays. It is not only easy on the skin and eyes but also has
???the good color rendering property and is capable of providing safe and high-value-added lighting
???in museums, product display cases and dressers.
3. Free of harmful substances such as mercury, the OEL panels are expected to outperform fluorescent tubes in power efficiency,
???ultimately contributing to the reduction of CO2 emission through energy savings.
The decision to establish the joint venture was based on the clearer prospects for commercially viable OEL development and production, which was spurred by the development of a new device structure that enabled the simultaneous achievement of increased brightness and longer operating life, which, in the past, were considered performance trade-offs. The realization of a high-speed, large-size production system (in-line deposition equipment with linear evaporation source for large scale substrate) will also significantly enhance material utilization efficiency. Lumiotec will aggressively promote the realization of the OEL panel business for lighting-applications.
The outline of the new company
Company name: ?? Lumiotec Inc.
Activities: ????? Manufacturing and marketing of organic electroluminescence (OEL) panels
for lighting application and assessment of the OEL panel business viability.
Capital: ?????? 1,400 million yen (700 million yen in common stock and 700 million yen in
capital reserve)
Investors and investment ratio:
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.: 51.0%
ROHM CO., LTD.: 34.0%
Toppan Printing Co., Ltd.: 9.9%
Mitsui & Co., Ltd.: 5.0%
Junji Kido: 0.1%
President: Hisao Shigenaga (concurrently serves as the Deputy General Manager of
MHI’s Machinery and Steel Structures Headquarters)
Head Office: Hachimanpara, Yonezawa City, Yamagata Prefecture
Number of employees: approximately 20