Samsung

The technology roadmap for flexible displays

In July IDTechEx released its market forecasts for OLED displays, predicting a rapid rise of plastic and flexible displays. Recent announcements from major consumer electronics companies have just confirmed this trend.

The Apple Watch is a sign that flexible displays are finally coming

The Apple Watch was officially announced earlier this month, with the promise that it will come with a flexible display. However, there is some confusion about what the term means and what the benefits are for consumers. Dr Guillaume Chansin, co-author of the IDTechEx report "OLED Display Forecasts 2014-2024: the rise of plastic and flexible displays" gives his view on flexible displays.

Study sheds new light on why batteries go bad

A comprehensive look at how tiny particles in a lithium ion battery electrode behave shows that rapid-charging the battery and using it to do high-power, rapidly draining work may not be as damaging as researchers had thought - and that the benefits of slow draining and charging may have been overestimated.

Kateeva closes series D round with $38 million in financing

Kateeva has announced that it has closed its Series D round with $38 million in financing.

Wearable Technology: Lessons of History

Many new wearable technologies will appear in luxury designer products and fashion following the modest beginning with non-electronic technology such as artificial diamonds and Swarovsky selling base metal linking glass that is coated with interference layers. High margins await.

Encapsulation of flexible electronics: alternatives to multilayers

IDTechEx has been following closely the space for flexible encapsulation and current trends show case that films or in-line deposition based on multi layers (alternating layers of organic and inorganic materials, also known as dyads) is the preferred technology. Alternatives have also been in development too though, so we will briefly analyze some of the main candidates that could potentially displace multilayer approaches: flexible glass, single layer approaches and atomic layer deposition are the technologies examined in this article.

Smartkem

Smartkem is a UK company set up in 2009. Smartkem has developed p-type organic semiconductors consisting of a mixture of small molecules and polymers. Their champion materials offer a mobility of 10 cm2/Vs. Key differentiators are the ability to improve solution processability without sacrificing performance, and processability in air.

Smart Wristwatches: Something Missing

Almost no one wants to wear more than one wrist-mounted device. In fact there has been some trend towards young people abandoning wristwatches because all those functions exist in their carried mobile phone. The trend in mobile phones has been to larger ones. The idea of that functionality being on your wrist goes completely against the trend.

Barrier technology reaching maturity - commercialization status

OLED displays are the biggest opportunity for flexible encapsulation and for that reason, IDTechEx has highlighted the most significant advances in the technology but also discusses the maturity of each of the different encapsulation approaches proposed by different developers. In a series of two articles, IDTechEx analysts discuss the significant advances witnessed in the past year towards commercialization of flexible displays and compares different technologies being developed.

Progress with Printed Electronics

In this article we focus on the current status of the main printed electronics technologies for components in consumer goods and healthcare applications, providing for each one market drivers, case studies and key suppliers, cost structures and challenges.

Woven, Smart Skin & Structural Supercapacitors for EVs and Other Uses

Supercapacitors continue to improve faster than lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries, something pointed out by Bombardier and IDTechEx some time ago. There is near consensus that commercial Li-ion batteries will not improve more than a factor of two in cost and energy density in the next decade.

Market Analysis of Thin, Flexible and Printed Batteries

The battery market today is dominated by traditional batteries such as coin cell batteries, Triple-A batteries and lithium ion batteries with the former being largely used in mobile phones, laptops and electrical vehicles. The emergence of new trends such as wearable devices and Internet of Things (IoT) is however changing the space. New features such ultra-thinness, small physical footprints, flexibility and light weight are becoming increasingly prized. New players and/or old players with new technologies are gearing up to meet this emerging need. In this article we will first look at the activities of several large companies on energy storage solutions aimed at wearable devices. We will then consider WSN and the threat of energy harvesting therein before considering medical applications. Finally, we will give our latest ten-year market forecasts segmented by application and battery type.

E-paper displays in consumer electronics

E Ink is the only supplier of electrophoretic displays that are used in e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle.

BMW Group and Samsung SDI expand partnership

The BMW Group and Samsung SDI plan to expand their supply relationship for battery cells for electro-mobility.

The rise of plastic and flexible OLED displays

IDTechEx forecasts that the market for plastic and flexible OLED displays will rise to $16bn by 2020.

Energy harvesting and IoT in building automation

There are many definitions flying around the world of technology for what the Internet of Things (IoT) is or what it can do for people and even more impressively, a wide range of numbers that describe the size of the market that the IoT is going to grow into, some of those projections swimming close to the "realm of unbelievable".

OLED displays in wearable devices

OLED displays have been very successful in mobile phones. As consumer electronics companies are trying to identify the next big thing, there is now a proliferation of "wearables" - devices that can be worn on the body. OLED technology brings some distinct advantages in these applications, such as thinner and curved displays.