IMOLA · Intelligent light management for OLED on foil applications

The main objective of the IMOLA project is the realization of a large-area OLED-based lighting module with built-in intelligent light management. Interesting applications are wall, ceiling and car dome lighting, where the light intensity can be adjusted uniformly or locally according to the time of the day or the position of a person, or even road lighting, where the light can follow a car.<br/>The front side of the module consists of OLED tiles attached and interconnected to a flexible backplane foil. In an early stage of the project, individual tiles (on glass as well as on foil) will be used, but in a later stage OLED tiles on the roll will be laminated and interconnected to the backplane.<br/>The backplane of the module contains the integrated driver electronics for the brightness control of the individual OLED tiles. A very thin and efficient smart-power chip converts a single 40V supply voltage into a controllable DC current for each OLED tile. This power converter chip employs an external passive component (inductor) that will preferably be embedded into the backplane foil. As the smart-power chip also allows the integration of dense CMOS circuitry, extra functionality and intelligence can be implemented on the chip. This includes optical feedback to eliminate non-uniformities between the tiles or to compensate OLED degradation effects. Other sensor functions can provide maximum interaction with the environment. Furthermore, advanced communication features, e.g. by means of PLC techniques across the power supply lines, can enable intelligent brightness control from a central unit.<br/>Within the consortium, all necessary expertise is available to ensure perfect coverage of all technological aspects (such as OLED and backplane foil development, chip placement, electrical interconnect, component embedding and lamination) as well as all design aspects (driver chip design, inductor design and EMC) in this challenging project.