Plextronics Announces OLED Lighting Distribution Agreement with Sanyo Chemical Industries

PITTSBURGH and KYOTO, Japan, May 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Plextronics, Inc. announced today that the Company has signed an OLED lighting distribution agreement with Sanyo Chemical Industries, Ltd.  Under the terms of the agreement, Sanyo will distribute select Plexcore® OC inks developed specifically for use in OLED lighting applications in the Japanese market.

Jim Dietz, Plextronics Vice President of Business Development, indicated that the relationship with Sanyo has been a long-standing and important one for both companies. "Sanyo has a tremendously strong reputation in the Japanese market for the quality and performance of the products it makes and sells. We've worked with them for the last few years, and there is no one better suited to be our distribution partner in Japan," said Dietz.

He added, "This agreement will give us the ability to work much more closely with some of the top OLED lighting developers in the world to drive the adoption and commercialization of OLED technology."

Fusayoshi Masuda, Sanyo Chemical's Representative Director and Executive Vice President, emphasized that Sanyo is enthusiastically developing new business fields. "From that point of view, new conductive polymer technology introduced by Plextronics was very attractive to us. We are sure that based upon our close relationship with our customers, this distribution agreement will be a good starting point for developing such new business opportunities," said Masuda.

Plexcore® OC Product Platform

Plexcore® OC includes two product lines with tunable hole injection designed for different device architectures – Plexcore® OC AQ and Plexcore® OC NQ. Plexcore® OC AQ consists of water-based HIL inks designed to deliver stable, low operating voltage and extended lifetime in polymer OLED (P-OLED) displays as well as hybrid phosphorescent OLED lighting panels.

Plexcore® OC NQ includes solvent-based HIL inks for solution-processed phosphorescent OLED emitters.  Combining new conductive polymer technology with solvent-based ink formulations, this HIL enables OLED display manufacturers to solution-process this layer without the concerns of potential device degradation due to the acidic nature of other HIL technologies.  In devices, Plexcore® OC NQ dramatically reduced operating voltage that is extending device lifetimes to be competitive with vapor-deposited OLED displays.    

About Plextronics, Inc.

Plextronics, Inc. is an international technology company that specializes in printed lighting, display, solar and other organic electronics.  Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, the company's focus is on organic light emitting diodes (OLED) and organic solar technology, specifically the conductive inks and process technologies that enable those and other similar applications.

The privately held company was founded in 2002 as a spinout from Carnegie Mellon University, based upon conductive polymer technology developed by Dr. Richard McCullough.  Since then, Plextronics scientists have refined and further developed this technology to deliver exceptional performance for printed electronics.  The company is ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 certified. For more information about Plextronics, visit www.plextronics.com.

About Sanyo Chemical

In 1949, Sanyo Chemical Industries, Ltd. was founded as a surfactant manufacturer in Kyoto, Japan. Since then, guided by our Company Motto, Let us contribute to building a better society through our corporate activities, we have been endeavoring to continually evolve along with our changing society. As the needs of society and industry have changed, we have responded by introducing new technologies, designing and developing high-value-added products.

Today's Sanyo Chemical is not just a surfactant manufacturer, but also a performance chemicals manufacturer with a variety of technologies and the capability to develop rapidly. We continue to evolve as we provide performance chemicals and chemical products that satisfy the performance and capability requirements of our customers in various industries.

Global environmental conservation and sustainable development are both demanded by today's society. As we continue our development of technologies and performance chemicals, we will endeavor to make an active contribution to society as good corporate citizens, and will strive to become a truly unique and excellent corporate group that operates on a global scale. For more information about Sanyo Chemical, please visit www.sanyo-chemical.co.jp/.

SOURCE Plextronics, Inc.