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OSRAM SYLVANIA Dramatically Expands Its Capacity to Produce Industry-Leading Electroluminescent Phosphor, Supporting Rapidly Growing Demand

3 January 2001

OSRAM SYLVANIA Dramatically Expands Its Capacity to Produce Industry-Leading Electroluminescent Phosphor, Supporting Rapidly Growing Demand

    TOWANDA, Pa.--Jan. 3, 2001--The future is exceedingly bright for OSRAM SYLVANIA's new encapsulated electroluminescent (EL) phosphor and, recognizing this, the company announced today a major production capacity expansion to fill the needs of its customers.
    The company, which has been developing EL technology since the 1950s, is increasing its current capacity to produce the SYLVANIA ANE(TM) nitride-based encapsulated EL phosphor, with an anticipated completion date of mid-year 2001.
    "We are running our current manufacturing lines 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and we are currently shipping more than we did with previous phosphor types" noted Stacy Garrity, phosphor product marketing manager for OSRAM SYLVANIA's Chemical & Metallurgical business, a leading manufacturer and global supplier of electroluminescent phosphor. "Even so, we're not able to keep up with the market demand. But we are pleased and proud to say that the capacity increases which are now underway will contribute significantly to our ability to support customer demand."
    She said the company is currently developing long-term supply agreements with a number of customers, both domestically and internationally. The U.S. Patent Office issued a patent for the nitride-coated ANE phosphor on May 16, 2000. "We have scaled up the manufacturing of all colors - green, blue/green, blue, orange, white," Garrity said. "We also are scaling up our ICEGLO(TM) capacity, and currently have ICEGLO green and blue/green available in limited quantities. ICEGLO products, also having the nitride-based coating, have superior lifetime and brightness of more than 25 per cent greater than current ANE products."
    She said OSRAM SYLVANIA has invested millions of dollars in both equipment and research and development to keep the EL phosphor market viable, and is currently working on projects to further improve brightness, increase efficacy and improve half-life. "We are anticipating dynamic growth in demand for our EL phosphors - especially for cell phones, personal display assistants, automobiles and signs - and we intend to aggressively develop products for these markets as well as aggressively enforce our patents worldwide."