Last week I visited Astron-Fiamm in Toulon, in southern France. They are a pioneer in OLED technology applied to technical lighting and signaling, benefitting from the support of FIAMM, a large international industrial group with a presence in 35 countries.
I was impressed by the interdisciplinarity of the scientist teams who are the heart of the company, their autonomy from conception to evaluation phases, their high level of technology, and their deep involvement into automotive application projects. Astron-Fiamm appear to me as the perfect partner for the conception, production and integration of innovative OLED lighting, either tailor made, or on large scale level. Their production capacity relies on a 300 m 2 cleanroom with a very large evaporator. It produces 6,000 m 2 of OLED panels per year, sized up to 47 cm × 37 cm.
I was allowed to visit the heart of the process—it took a full 15 minutes to don all the special clothing needed to insure against dust contamination of the cleanroom. The thickness of the coating is around 0.1 µm and a single grain of dust would cause the rejection of the production run, so the precautions are appropriate.
During the visit, I have seen the preparation of the mock-up Astron-Fiamm will present during the Paris Mondial Motor Show. It is a formidable car equipped with functional lights, interior as well as exterior. The rear light and the interior lights are really impressive.
After this visit, I was convinced that the impact of new automotive lighting technologies is still ahead of us: LEDs, OLEDs, cameras, laser light combined with new simulation tools. Indeed the future of attractive automotive lighting for mainstream car models is still to come. The road is open with wondrous things to achieve. We at Driving Vision News will carry on doing our best to help you along this fantastic new journey. We’re glad you’re with us—onward and upward!
Sincerely yours
DVN Editor in Chief