Patent ID: 7242141

Claim:
A fault-tolerant electroluminescent lighting device, comprising: a substrate; a first electrode on said substrate; a thin-film stack on said first electrode, wherein said thin-film stack includes an electroluminescent layer; a second electrode on said thin-film stack, wherein a particular one of either said first electrode or said second electrode is a plurality of electrode strips, a particular one of said plurality of electrode strips has at least one gap that separates said particular electrode strip into a plurality of electrode segments, and a fuse material at least partially covers a particular one of said at least one gap such that two adjacent electrode segments that are separated by said particular gap are electrically connected to each other, and resistivity of said fuse material increases when a large current flows through said fuse material, and wherein said at least one gap is on said substrate, and at least two of said plurality of electrode strips are coupled to a common external contact.