Printing Electronics (CONTINUED)
Continued from previous page
The following is a list of companies currently involved with the creation of printed electronics, as well as which processes are being employed.
|
Company |
Application |
Printing technology |
Status |
|
Omron |
Antennas on high volume RFID labels |
Gravure |
In production |
|
ACREO |
Chipless RFID |
Screen |
In trials |
|
MeadWestvaco |
RFID enabled packaging recording time and amount of medication taken |
Screen (sensors and interconnects) |
In production |
|
Sony |
Keypads |
Screen |
In production |
|
Dai Nippon Printing |
Organic Light Emitting Diode OLED moving colour displays on flexible substrates |
Gravure |
Experimental |
|
Aveso |
Electrochromic colour displays |
Screen |
In production for gift cards, smart cards etc. |
|
Avery Dennison |
Chipless battery testers in Duracell batteries |
Screen |
In production |
|
Thin Battery Technologies |
Printed CZn batteries |
Screen |
In production |
|
PolyIC |
Chipless transistor circuits on flexible substrates |
Flexo, gravure and litho |
In trials as RFID |
|
Plastic Logic |
Chipless transistor circuits on flexible substrates |
Ink jet |
In trials as active matrix backplanes for printed flexible displays |
|
Elumin8 |
Moving colour electroluminescent billboards using thin flexible plastic |
Screen |
In production |
|
Power Paper |
Iontophoretic skin patches for delivery of cosmetics and drugs |
Screen |
Licensees in production soon |
|
VTT Technology |
Thermochromic displays, switches and interconnects in games on paper packaging |
Screen and other. |
Prototypes demonstrated |
Source IDTechEx
|
|
In most of these cases we are talking about many passes of very different new inks such as fine silver conductors, ceramic dielectrics, copper doped phosphors, and both organic and inorganic semiconductors and passivation layers. Low temperature curing, better definition, thinner layers and continuity are among the challenges. However, well over ten billion such constructions, mostly on polyester film or paper, have already been sold and the potential goes all the way up to ten trillion barcodes being replaced with printed chipless RFID every year. Yes, the barcode replacements will mainly be printed directly onto things – the money will not stretch to labels in those volumes.
Below is the IDTechEx projection for the global market for RFID in 2016 in billions of dollars with the impact of printing technology
|
Partly printed tags for items |
US$4.4 billion |
|
Fully printed tags for items |
US$1.1billion |
|
Partly printed tags for other uses |
US$3.55 billion |
|
Tags without printing, for other uses |
US$1.8 billion |
Little wonder then that the suppliers of traditional printing inks such as Sun Chemical and the manufacturers of traditional high volume printing equipment such as MAN Roland are heavily into the printed electronics world. They know that it will go far beyond silicon and be a far bigger market eventually, encompassing even laminar fuel cells and antistatic shielding and its impact will be mainly in creating new markets, not replacing silicon. In fact, the silicon chip industry, like the button battery industry, may not notice being kicked out of gift cards. They have other things to do.
 |
Dr Peter Harrop PhD, FIEE is Chairman of IDTechEx Ltd. He was previously Chief Executive of Mars Electronics, the US$260 million electronics company and Chairman of Pinacl plc, the US$100 million fibre optic company. He has been chairman of over 15 high tech companies. He has written 14 books on technical subjects, these being published by the Financial Times, John Wiley and others. He lectures and consults internationally on RFID, smart labels, printed/organic electronics and smart packaging. To reach Dr. Harrop, email p.harrop@idtechex.com | |
