August 1, 2007 – OSRAM Opto Semiconductors says it will stop making its “Pictiva” organic LEDs (OLEDs) for passive matrix displays by year’s end, instead focusing on its OLED activities for “market-ready” lighting solutions. The shift means closing a display manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, transferring the 270 employees to a new LED chip production facility at the same site.

Global demand for the displays has lagged far behind the company’s expectations, the company said in a statement. CEO Rudiger Muller noted the company will turn its attention to its core business of lighting solutions with OLEDs (e.g. area lighting), and expects to have first “market-ready” products “in the next few years,” adding that experience from the display business “will speed up the process considerably.”