Applications & Markets

Kodak and Heraeus demonstrate first use of PEDOT in projected capacitive touch screens

Blue Spark Technologies, the leading supplier of thin, flexible, eco-friendly printed batteries, announced it has opened a new high-volume printing and production facility located in West Bend, Wisconsin.

Stretchable and conformal electronics is a relatively new but rapidly emerging and fascinating field in microelectronics.

This week, Printed Electronics World visited Mr Etsuo Nakagawa and Mr Kiichiro Ito of JNC Corporation (parent company Chisso) in Japan. JNC Corporation manufactures worldwide and that includes structural plastics and Li-ion battery materials for electric vehicles. In printed electronics, it is about to sell RFID inlays with a secret new antenna deposition process on plastic film.

The Cornell Center for Materials Research JumpStart program is designed to assist New York State small businesses develop and improve their products through university collaborations; the ultimate goal being revenue growth and job creation.

Industry veterans bring specialized expertise in business development and emerging applications to the alliance.

OLED versus LED lighting, the energy storage gold rush, replacing ITO and more.

IDTechEx's Printed Electronics Europe 2012 event in Berlin, Germany on April 3-4, will be the largest gathering of end users discussing their needs and experiences with the technology. The event matches technology providers with adopters.

Last week IDTechEx held the largest (worldwide) printed electronics and photovoltaics conference and tradeshow in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara Convention Center, California). This show brought together more than 1300 attendees from 28 countries. Players active across the entire value chain were present; covering the full range from research organisations to end-users, and from small start-ups to multi-billion internationals.

The annual printed electronics award winners were announced at the IDTechEx Awards Dinner in Santa Clara, California. The awards recognize outstanding progress in the development and commercialization of printed electronics, an industry that produces a huge amount of technical innovation which will be used in many products.

Metalonix, Inc., a ground-breaking provider of functional metallic inks, is pleased to announce its official corporate name has changed to Liquid X Printed Metals, Inc. ("Liquid X"). Liquid X spun out of Carnegie Mellon University in 2010 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Technology never sleeps, and the five years that have passed since the previous edition of Flexible Circuit Technology was released have provided a substantial amount of new material for the all-new fourth edition of Flexible Circuit Technology, edited by 40-year electronics interconnection industry veteran Joseph Fjelstad and coauthored with some the world's top interconnection technologists.

Researchers demonstrate future of computing with graphene, racetrack and carbon nanotube breakthroughs. Prototypes developed for first time in real-world manufacturing environments are critical step towards transferring research into commercial devices.

Individual molecules have been used to create electrical components like resistors, transistors and diodes that mimic the properties of familiar semiconductors. But according to Nongjian (NJ) Tao, a researcher at the Biodesign Institute at ASU, unique properties inherent in single molecules also may allow clever designers to produce novel devices whose behavior falls outside the performance observed in conventional electronics.

The FLEXIBILITY consortium, consisting of Enfucell, Siemens, VTT, Varta Microbattery and seven other leading European technology companies and universities, has been granted a 4,9 million euro project funding by the EU commission of which Enfucell's share is 258.000 euros. The project is coordinated by the Dresden University of Technology and has a life span of four years.

Paul Yager, chair of the Bioengineering Department at the University of Washington, leads several subcontractors in two major grants totaling up to $26 million pushing the envelope on paper-based diagnostics.

Two of the main challenges in the development and further adoption of flexible electronics have been the sensitivity to moisture and oxygen of active materials, leading to stringent requirements for permeation and the need to replace expensive, brittle ITO, the most popular choice as a transparent conductive layer.

IDTechEx has already shared the sheer scope, profiles of key players, enabling devices, and commercial product possibilities presented by printed electronics. Just a couple years ago, we tracked 500 organizations (50% universities & research institutes, 50% corporations) developing printed or organic transistors, and found that the combined commercial revenue of products using these transistors was zero - in other words, the industry still needed time, money, and partnerships to scale.

Next week the 8th annual IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA event opens at the Santa Clara Convention Center in CA, USA, on Nov 30 - Dec 1. Pre-registrations are 22% higher compared to this point last year and the number of exhibitors has grown by 19%. Pre-registered attendees are coming from 29 countries, with a particularly large contingent from Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Attendees are also coming from afar as China, Australia, India, South Africa and all over Europe.

A new technique developed by Stanford researchers advances commercial potential of semiconducting carbon nanotubes for printable circuits, bendable display screens, stretchable electronics and solar technology.

This article shares some of the research carried out for the new IDTechEx report, {{RFID in Russia, CIS, Baltic States 2012-2022| http://www.idtechex.com/research/reports/rfid-in-russia-cis-baltic-states-2012-2022-000285.asp}}.

A collaboration between researchers at the University of Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute and the Faculty of Mechatronics of Warsaw University of Technology in Poland reports that low electrical loss at frequencies of up to 220 GHz are possible in screen printed carbon nanotube - polymer composites. Producing such low electrical loss materials potentially opens up new types of high frequency large area electronic devices.

Three weeks remain until the IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA 2011 conference and tradeshow, the biggest event in the world on the topic. This year's tradeshow will be the largest Printed Electronics exhibition to date, with 105 exhibiting companies already confirmed to exhibit on the 46,000 sq.ft. tradeshow floor of the Santa Clara Convention Centre.

The phenomenal and cultural success of Apple and Steve Jobs' vision was the result of technology and artistry coming together to change the way we interact with our world. IDTechEx has long advocated the need for more companies to not only continue to develop breakthrough PE technology but to design and integrate printed electronics into the soul of the product rather than just supplying materials or components.

The first commercial application of grapheme-based inks will appear in major retail stores in the US in Q1/2012 according to US companies Vorbeck Materials Corp. and MWV Packaging.

Screen Printing is one of the more established technologies utilised in the manufacture of what a lot would consider "conventional" electronics. And although they represent a hybrid state between fully printable electronics and electronics processed in silicon fabs, they also represent the intermediate step that leads to more accurate, fully automated atmospheric processing at very high volumes, with equally high yields.

IDTechEx, the organiser of the World's largest global series of Printed Electronics events will hold its European show in Berlin, Germany on April 3-4 (www.IDTechEx.com/peEUROPE). The focus, as at all IDTechEx events, is to address the needs and experiences of adopters of the technology.

Most of the well-known objectives of printed electronics remain elusive because they are glamorous, Olympian dreams based on some very exciting demonstrations in laboratories.

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a nonprofit research center has developed a highly flexible electronic paper that's both re-writable and re-usable, and doesn't require electricity to retain the screen image. Licensing talks are already underway with ChangChun Plastics who plan to begin pilot production of a product next year.

UK companies are being invited to take part in a competition for funding for collaborative research and development projects that aim to develop and stimulate technology within the European Organic and Large Area Electronics (OLAE) community.

The development of low power electronics and devices for integration into the type of active lifestyles that are characteristic of modern humans is a vibrant area of research. Whether the electronics are wearable, epidermal, edible or even implantable, developments are taking place worldwide with new concepts, designs and prototypes that could change everyday life with minimal intrusiveness.

E InkHoldings the pioneer of TFT and ePaper business, has experienced record high sales revenues in September, with September stand alone revenues totaling NT$ 3.802 billion, representing a growth of 143% compared to last year, and a growth of 44 percent compared to last month.

Scientists at the University of Manchester have come one step closer to creating the next generation of computer chips using wonder material graphene.

Electron superhighway could pave way for creation of elusive quantum-particle pairs

Sandia National Laboratories will begin researching how to use glitter-sized photovoltaic cells in utility-scale solar power systems, which eventually could cut the costs of solar panels in half and nearly double their efficiency.

Nanowires of copper could eliminate busted cell phone screens and make solar cells more competitive with fossil fuels.

IDTechEx, the organiser of the World's largest global series of Printed Electronics events will hold its European show in Berlin, Germany on 3-4 April. The focus, as at all IDTechEx events, is to address the needs and experiences of adopters of the technology.

Over the next decade, the most vibrant Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) markets will be the contactless charging of portable and mobile equipment, in particular consumer electronics and electric vehicles.

ANTENNAS IN YOUR CLOTHES? NEW DESIGN COULD PAVE THE WAY

This year, the world's largest event on printed electronics, "printed Electronics USA" will reflect the widening government support for printed electronics. Beyond the burgeoning programs at universities and government research centers, this is particularly evident in military and electric vehicle work. The US Army reflects this in two presentations. One is an overview of materials printing capabilities and prototype development for US Army applications and the other concerns direct write approaches to nanoscale electronics.

The industrial collaboration is led by Swansea University's Welsh Centre of Printing and Coating which is teaming up with the Institute of Life Science and industry.

IDTechEx has tracked the printed electronics market since 2002. We have conducted extensive research programs, run our own events internationally and attended most other relevant events. Being impartial, we state the good and the bad. So what have we learnt?

The Director of the Fraunhofer IPMS is nominated for the Federal President's prize of Technology and Innovation.

Technical Analyst, Dr Harry Zervos reports on the FlexTech Alliance Quarterly Workshop.

This year's Printed Electronics USA will take place in Santa Clara on November 30 and December 1. Analysts IDTechEx who organise the largest event on the subject, have paid a lot of attention once more to the end user streams. Their presence and contributions to the latest instalment of the successful series of events will be appropriate to the new direction of this burgeoning industry.

IDTechEx, the leading global technology and market research, consulting and events company has appointed Dr Fyfe to its Board of Directors.

IDTechEx is recruiting and seeks a Technology Analyst.

Southwest Nanotechnologies Has Received A $500,000 Oklahoma Research Grant To Commercialize Printed Thin Film Transistors Using Single-walled Carbon Nanotube Inks In Collaboration With Panasonic Boston Laboratory

The members of the OE-A (Organic and Printed Electronics Association) elected a new Board of Directors at their annual General Assembly meeting.

PragmatIC Printing Ltd, the pioneer in imprinted logic circuits, and Holst Centre,an open-innovation initiative by imec (Belgium) and TNO (Netherlands), have recently announced their collaboration in the research, development and exploitation of flexible electronics.