Logic & Memory

The world's fastest graphene transistor at 26GHz was achieved by IBM Research.

The ISRA VISION Smash PCB™ inspection system can be used in printed electronics applications to detect defects to include: mis-registration, shorts, opens, cracks, "mouse bites", and substrate defects.

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

IDTechEx has just issued a report on the hot topic of Wireless Sensor Networks WSN, also known as Ubiquitous Sensor Networks USN. The report is called Wireless Sensor Networks.

Kovio Inc., a privately held Silicon Valley company, announced this week the development of the world's first silicon ink based RFID and launch of its printed silicon RFID platform for item-level intelligence.

Further to the company visits covered in yesterday's article, attendees to the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Asia event in Tokyo last week had the opportunity to visit Dai Nippon Printing, Frontier Carbon Corporation and Toppan Printing. Here we cover some of the highlights.

238 people attended the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Asia 2008 conference and exhibition on October 8-9 this week. Companies attended included Toppan Forms, Panasonic, Dai Nippon Printing, Sony, Samsung, Toyota, Mitsubishi Plastics, Brother Industries, Teijin, Konica Minolta, Mitsui, Toshiba and Honda to name a few.

Seiko Epson is famous for piezo electric inkjet printing and it is this printing platform that the company is applying to printing electronic materials. Paul Patterson of Seiko Epson gives IDTechEx a brief insight into the company's history and expertise with printed electronics.

University of Utah, physicists have moved a step forward in building an organic "spin transistor": a plastic semiconductor switch for future ultrafast computers and electronics but OLED efficiencies look bleak.

Materials used in CDs and DVDs form the basis of a technology that one day could replace flash memory cards used in laptops, cellphones, cameras and other electronic devices.

In Portugal, a new field effect transistor with paper interstrate layer has now been developed.

Memristor discovery could lead to far more energy-efficient computing systems with memories that don't forget and never need to be booted up.

HP and Xtreme Energetics have announced that they have entered into an agreement for the development of a solar energy system designed to generate electricity at twice the efficiency and half the cost of traditional solar panels.

The extended joint collaboration is focused on developing reliable print manufacturing processes for high volume production of Thinfilm's memory technology. The work will be performed at InkTec's 2nd factory in Pyungtaek-city, Korea.

3M uses balls with self levelling RFID tags in them for location and identity of gas and other pipelines in the USA - a similar function is now being performed in China.

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.

At the Aichi World Fair in Japan in 2005, Hitachi Mew Solutions 2.45 GHz passive RFID inserts were in 25 million admission tickets that were issued.

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

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.

Following the recent breathrough of the US company Kovio in printing nanosilicon transistors in thousands with much smaller size and better performance than printed polymer transistors we now have 3D printing of silicon, a completely different process.

Kovio Achieves Printed Electronics Milestone with World's First All-printed High-performance Silicon Thin-film Transistor.

A new range of transistors using thin films of organic or inorganic compounds as the semiconductors and gate dielectrics are being pursued by organizations in over 30 countries. The new IDTechEx report

Products like the flexible transistor will account for 10 percent of the information technology (IT) device market within the next 10 years say researchers at KIST.

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

Printed electronics will eventually interest a high proportion of the seven billion people that will be on the planet because it will transform their lives. It will eventually involve over 100,000 manufacturers. Today, printed and potentially printed electronics is already of interest to over 10,000 organisations.

In Åbo Akademi University in Finland there is a program on Organic Electronics run by Professor Ronald Österbacka in the Applied Physics department. Electronics on paper, board, plastic and fiber based materials is in their sights.

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.

Sanmina-SCI Corporation, a leading global electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company and Shocking Technologies, Inc., a developer of voltage switchable dielectric materials, announced last week, the production of what they believe is the world's first printed circuit board (PCB) with embedded electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection covering 100 percent of the components on the board.

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.

Amir Mashkoori, Kovio Chairman and CEO, will be the keynote speaker at the annual IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA 2007 conference and exhibition, being held November 13-14 2007 in San Francisco. This will be Kovio's first public presentation since the company's inception.

In the world of printed electronics, it is all too often presumed that silicon chips are the ideal, a form of perfection that other technologies cannot match, let alone overtake. However, it has recently become clear that silicon is encountering very serious problems.

Several hundred hospitals across the world have electronic RFID wristbands.

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.

Cartamundi, the company that supplied the playing cards used in the James Bond film 'Casino Royale' is going to add plastic memory to its products.

Imagine reading a book like the Da Vinci Code and being able to Google the name of one of the pieces of art or societies such as the Knights Templar by touching a word in the book.

Printed transistors and memory will be the largest part of the new electronics just as silicon chips are the largest part of the old electronics. The reason is that printed logic and memory are needed in almost everything electronic. It therefore matters greatly which countries will win in printed transistors, the engine of the whole printed electronics revolution.

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.

The future $300 billion market for printed electronics is emerging via thin film electronics. The contribution of organic materials to this is greatly publicized but the best devices being developed usually rely on inorganic or combined inorganic/organic technology. The more select groups developing these inorganic materials and devices have a great future. IDTechEx has published the first study on Inorganic Printed and Thin Film Electronics. Here Dr Peter Harrop summarises some of the findings.

Although the capabilities of complex silicon chips increase at a rapid pace, there is little or no reduction in cost of the simplest silicon chips. How does printed electronics fit in?

RFID System Frequency mismatch for printed antennas and chips

Why replace silicon chips connected to other components?

Japanese group overcome two hurdles with printed OLEDs

By Acreo

Controlling TFTC frequency

Thin film silicon, organic and inorganic semiconductors

Where silicon cannot go

Dr Thomas J Lindner, R&D manager Hewlett Packard, United States at Printed Electronics USA 2005

Dr David Margolese, V.P., Technology Development ORFID Corporation, United States at Printed Electronics USA 2005

Mr Rolf Åberg, Managing Director Thin Film Electronics, Sweden at Printed Electronics USA 2005

Prof John A Rogers, Founder Professor of Engineering University of Illinois, United States at Printed Electronics USA 2005

Mr Troy Hammond, Vice President Products Plextronics Inc, United States at Printed Electronics USA 2005

Dr Peter Eckerle, Project Leader Printed Electronics BASF Future Business GmbH, Germany at Printed Electronics USA 2005