Displays & Lighting

Susann Reuter, Director of IDTechEx, visited Citala US Inc. in the heart of California's Silicon Valley where the company develops, manufactures, supplies and supports flexible, reflective displays.

The competition is currently heating up with the development of Gen II (flexible) e-book readers.

The Flexible Display Centre (FDC) at Arizona State University has announced that Applied Materials, Inc., through its Display Business Group-AKT, has become an Associate Member, joining the ranks of other world-class providers of technology, materials and process equipment who are collaborating with the FDC to develop advanced flexible electronic displays.

NTERA, Inc., the leader in all-printed, flexible, color change display technologies, and GSI Technologies, the leading manufacturer of functional printed electronic components, has announced that they have entered into a multi-year license and material supply agreement to produce devices using NTERA's NanoChromics™ technology.

How Printed Electronics is changing consumer goods and services - highlights from the forthcoming Printed Electronics USA event

IDTechEx finalises its report on the Intellipak conference held on 5 November in Sweden

IDTechEx is famed for organising visits to local centers of excellence. On 30 September, delegates were treated to visits to the University of Tokyo and the skyscrapers of Sony and Toppan Forms in central Tokyo.

PowerFilm Inc to receive funding to develop a Self Powered Flexible Display for the U.S. Army.

Single-wall carbon nanotube (CNT) thin-film transistors (TFTs) are now possible for flexible displays and electronics.

In the last few years there has been increasing work on printed Zinc Oxide (ZnO) inorganic semiconductors. However, the materials developed have been used to demonstrated n-type transistors, but p-type transistors have not been commercially available. There are now two organizations that IDTechEx is aware of, and many more working on the topic, claiming p-type ZnO transistors are possible with reproducible results.

Dr Harry Zervos, technology analyst with IDTechEx, interviewed Jacques Angelé, co-founder and VP Technology Programs of Nemoptic SA, an electronic paper display company.

The 2.7 inch diagonal E Ink display scrolls through 96 different images in a stylish animation and is activated when a call or message is received.

Researchers have found a simple way to uniformly deposit between one and five layers of graphene to create transistors and proof-of concept electrodes for organic photovoltaics.

European researchers have taken a major step towards the goal of developing printable electronics that can be used for creating radio frequency identification tags and flexible watch displays.

Analysts see printed electronics rising exponentially to around $300 billion in twenty years' time, with demand for conductive inks alone reaching several billion dollars yearly five years from now.

IDTechEx summarise the latest on e-paper displays from Japan

The biggest challenge to roll out more digital displays is the regulatory environment, not the capital cost.

CDT and Sumitomo Chemicals, leaders in polymer organic light emitting diode (P-OLED) devices, and Novaled, the leader in high efficiency p-i-n OLED structures and dopant materials, have agreed to collaborate under a joint development agreement to investigate the feasibility and benefits of new materials and Novaled PIN OLED™ structures in P-OLED devices.

At the SID 2008 event last week, Kevin Luczkow of the Kraft Group discussed their use of large area displays in a new sports exhibit hall they are building. The Kraft Group's assets in sports and entertainment include the New England Patriots, the New England Revolution and Gillette Stadium.

A claimed breakthrough barrier technology from Singapore protects sensitive devices like organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and solar cells from moisture 1000 times more effectively than any other technology available in the market.

Printed electronics is evolving so fast that the full variety of benefits arising has yet to become clear.

A common theme in the IDTechEx conference Printed Electronics in Dresden this week was the shortage of creative product design.

Chemists and physicists are hard at work developing production processes for graphene - one day it may even be printable.

IDTechEx, along with other analysts, forecast the printed electronics market. While some agree others give widely different figures. After analyzing the industry for nine years, IDTechEx has just completed a new report covering the forecasts of the industry in great detail. Here Raghu Das, CEO, summarises the findings giving that crucial detail behind our forecasts.

Scientists from Tokyo University have just revealed a reliable method to inkjet print dots of one micron on to flexible film.

South Korean engineers say that they had developed a new transparent electrode that could reduce the production costs of display screens used in computers and mobile phones.

It sounds like science fiction but smart paint may be available in the near future.

A stretchable, flexible self-cleaning device that can be used as a mobile phone or keyboard that harvests solar energy and senses the environment by using nanotechnology was launched this week.

Part 2 of the IDTechEx review of the Flexible Displays Conference in Phoenix.

IDTechEx attended the recent Flexible Displays Conference in Phoenix. Read our review here - part 1.

SnapWatch Ltd, a UK-based start-up has patented a flexible watch concept using E paper display technology.

The recent conference Printed Electronics USA in San Francisco had a presentation by two people from the secretive company Quantum Paper.

Polymer Vision's e-reader with mobile phone has finally gone into production after 10 years of research & development and more than two years after the prototype was demonstrated at a consumer electronics trade fair.

Engineers at the University of Washington, US have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

Printed batteries and printed displays will be the first products of prelonic technologies OG, a new High-Tech company recently founded in Linz, Austria.

Organic based solution processable devices may revolutionise the lighting and photovoltaic industries of the future.

Intel has withdrawn from one of the schemes to supply children in the developing world with $100 laptop computers after a dispute with its partners in the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project.

NexTech FAS, have announced that a leading organic light-emitting diode (OLED) process development company has placed multiple orders for its Advantage II Extrusion Coating system to be integrated into an R&D line for development of OLED displays.

A dual Analog-Digital wristwatch using E Ink's electronic paper display technology was recently launched by Art Technology, Hong Kong.

Aveso, Inc., the leading provider of flexible displays for high-volume, cost-sensitive applications, has announced the commercial launch of its Primero™ line of flexible numeric display modules.

Polymer Vision, a spin out of Royal Philips Electronics, announced first production level rollable electrophoretic displays from its recently acquired manufacturing facility, Polymer Vision (UK) Ltd in Southampton, England - previously owned by Southampton University and called Innos.

Using room-temperature processing, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have fabricated high-performance field effect transistors with thin films of Carbon 60, also known as fullerene.

On 20 November, the Printed Electronics Arena had a one day meeting in Norrkoping Science Park Sweden

Inorganic semiconductor technologies with conventional patterning offer immediate solutions, according to Kodak, which offers Chemical Vapor Deposition CVD to make it happen.

Bookstore chain Selexyz will be the first bookstore in the Netherlands with the sales of the digital book reader, the iLiad.

Alan Hodgson follows up with his third report on the Digital Fabrication conference held in Alaska, 16-21 September 2007

Procurement of equipment is already underway for printing conductive inks, metallised circuits and novel barrier layers onto flexible substrates and further R&D programmes for new customers will be introduced in the coming months.

Five Star says the ElectroSperse pastes deliver the same uniform particle size and consistent rheology seen in Five Star dispersions, enabling customers to print fine features consistently and economically.

There is a much more balanced situation across the world when it comes to development and production of printed electronic and electric devices.

Chiba University has been working with DaiNippon Printing to progress aspects for flexible displays and here we share some of their slides presented at the IDTechEx Smart Labels Asia conference

At the IDTechEx conference Printed Electronics Asia, held last week, Kiyoshi Yase of the Photonics Research Institute at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan gave a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of flexible and printable organic electronics.

Philips Research in Eindhoven, the Netherlands have demonstrated that electrowetting is an attractive technology for the rapid manipulation of liquids on a micrometer scale and have shown that electrowetting can also be used to form the basis of a reflective display that is significantly faster than electrophoretic displays

Overall, Europe may be losing the race for the huge new business of printed electronics and the rejuvenation of society that it will bring. This is despite having far more academic institutions than East Asia working on the subject, the number being comparable to the number in the USA.

The market for organic and printed electronics will rise from $1.18 billion in 2007 to over $300 billion in 20 years, becoming a huge business as the technology offers many different benefits. Here Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx, reveals market forecasts and opportunities based on the new IDTechEx report Organic & Printed Electronics Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2007-2027.

It is inevitable that the choice of best markets for printed electronics will change as developers establish the strengths and weaknesses of their products and learn which users are keen and which are not.

Printing is the basis of the new electronics. As Dr Colin Marsh of The Technology Partnership in the UK says,

Fujitsu Frontech hope to contribute to a paperless society with the development and commercial introduction of its indoor display board "Super Frontech Vision EP series," which adopts multiple color electronic paper panels and realizes ultra low-power operation.

Based on the latest research by IDTechEx, reported in the new report Organic & Printed Electronics Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2007-2027, the market for printed and thin film electronics will be $1.18 billion in 2007. IDTechEx forecast the market growing to $5.06 billion by 2011, and $48.18 billion in 2027.

Researchers claim to have created the first prototype of a new design for semiconductors, devices in which transparent electronics are built on top of a flexible transparent base.

The indium price is volatile but the general trend is from $60 per kilogram three years ago to $1000 today. Most believe that $10,000 per kilogram will be reached in due course and that will make the material an expired resource for most practical purposes.

Reminiscent of the launch of fluorescent, halogen and LED, CeeLite's Light Emitting Capacitor (LEC) technology is predicted to change the definition of lighting.

Nippon Hoso Kyokai NHK means Japan Broadcasting Corporation. It is Japan's sole nationwide public broadcasting corporation. Its laboratories specialize in research and development in the field of broadcasting and related technologies.

By Acreo