Materials

IDTechEx met up with Mr Mineyuki Arikawa, President of Japanese start up Frontier Carbon Corporation who is now researching electronic opportunities for his fullerine (C60 etc buckyball carbon) in Europe, notably in organic photovoltaics OPV.

Researchers discover method for mass production of nanomaterial graphene.

Any reduction in the price of silver can lead to substantial savings for a high volume manufacturer so the recent fall in the price of sliver of over 50% to under $10/oz will be good news for the printed electronics industry.

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.

Researchers have developed a new type of small-scale electric power generator able to produce alternating current through the cyclical stretching and releasing of zinc oxide wires encapsulated in a flexible plastic substrate with two ends bonded.

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

Soligie, a market leader in the design and manufacture of printed electronics, announced that it has achieved ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 13485:2003 certification from BSI, Inc.

Creative's radio opaque inks and adhesives are custom designed to adhere to a wide variety of plastics. The products are formulated to be applied by several methods including: pad printing, screen-printing and syringe dispensing.

An electromagnetic cloak as seen in the Harry Potter movies may be only 5 years away believe scientists at Purdue University.

It is predicted that the cost of silver will increase exponentially over the years and as a result of this cost escalation, low cost but high quality metallic inks are required.

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.

A new name for a proven product line for sputtering target manufacturing, coatings and related applications.

Applied Nanotech Holdings, Inc. expands research agreement and enters negotiations to finalize an exclusive license agreement with Leading industrial chemical products company.

On the second day of the successful IDTechEx conference Printed Electronics Asia the subjects were OLED Display technology, E-Paper Display, Printing Technology, Material Advances and Future Possibilities.

IDTechEx reports on the Printing and Graphics Science Group of the IOP one-day seminar on measuring techniques for high barrier films, held at Institute of Physics, London on Thursday 25th September 2008.

BASF, Germany and Ciba Holdings, Switzerland who have both extended their portfolio into printed electronics may now combine there expertise with a planned public takeover offer to Ciba's shareholders by BASF.

IDTechEx look at what is coming along as memory compatible with today's silicon chip electronics.

Nanofibers can be effectively produced by electrospinning, which is a simple and low cost technique for both organics and inorganics in different configurations.

High resolution reel-to-reel or sheet fed 100% in-spection of printed and patterned flexible circuit materials results in reduced waste and increased quality through yield management.

Ismat Shah at the University of Delaware in the USA has been using quantum dots to improve Dye Sensitised Solar cells.

Researcher claims to have made 3D metamaterial with a negative refractive index.

DuPont Microcircuit Materials introduces new Solamet® PV159 for photovoltaic solar cells.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a radio telescope currently under development by an international consortium who aim to probe fundamental physics, the origin and evolution of the Universe, the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the formation and distribution of planets.

Reinvestment supports next growth phase: Opening Dresden plant, establishing US headquarters, management team expansion.

Utilizing the proven materials deposition techniques of stencil printing, screen printing and spin coating, Henkel's WBC solution allows packaging specialists to efficiently coat the back of wafers with die attach materials down to 20 microns in thickness.

Things have now become really exciting with a huge range of new chemicals, nanotechnology and printing technology brought to bear and sophisticated thin film deposition techniques other than printing being tailored to play a part.

Before the 1990s, silicon chip technology employed only six elements according to IBM but today we see a huge variety of compounds, alloys, solvents and dopants brought to bear.

Printed Electronics Asia will display some of the latest manufacturing technologies from across the world.

Chemical companies have huge opportunities in the new world of printed 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.

IDTechEx report on the SEMICON West event held in San Francisco in mid July - an event with over one thousand exhibitors covering the silicon supply chain.

Creative Materials announces a series of unique single-component, electrically conductive, B-stageable epoxy adhesives.

Researchers created a flexible circuit containing more than 100 transistors, the largest nanonet ever produced and the first demonstration of a working nanonet circuit.

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.

Scientists at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden have developed a new material called cellulose nanopaper by exposing wood pulp to certain chemicals.

The spot price of silver is up over 50% in the past 12 months and it continues to trend upward because silver supplies are falling fast while demand from China, India, Russia and Eastern Europe is climbing. As a reult, a lot of work is underway for alternatives.

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.

Optomec and Applied Nanotech Holdings, Inc. announce strategic co-operation to introduce optimized copper inks for aerosol jet printing for printable electronics.

It is now generally accepted that the printed electronics is headed to be a business of the order of $300 billion yearly in about twenty years time.

SunJet, the inkjet ink division of Sun Chemical, announced the development of ink chemistry designed to support and deliver conductive films using nano-particles of silver.

$18.8 billion transaction marks pivotal point in Dow's transformation

It was noted in the Council for Science and Technology Review that Plastic Electronics is a high risk / high reward priority technology area. The academic structure is well established in OLED, PLED, OSC materials and deposition methods with £20M / yr funding from Research Councils (EPSRC).

On 1st July, The UK Trade & Investment Chemical Sector Initiative on Printed Electronics hosted a Masterclass at Haydock Park Racecourse in North West England.

Platilon ID films enable sensitive electronic items to be directly embedded by means of efficient

ALIO Industries and FujiFILM Dimatix have partnered to design and build a large scale process development system for Dimatix' next generation inkjet printhead development.

To promote electronics material advancement in China, Henkel and Shanghai University, in conjunction with several leading research universities, have now entered into an agreement to form a Shanghai Region Joint Electronics Research and Failure Analysis Center.

Nano-Proprietary, Inc. announced that that its new trading symbol, effective with the start of trading on Tuesday, July 1, 2008, will be APNT.

IDTechEx recently visited Novacentrix in Austin, Texas, to learn of their room temperature cure process.

Printed electronics is used in RFID to a steadily increasing extent as volumes start to exceed those met in any other form of electronics.

Universitaet Stuttgart, and Nano-Proprietary, Inc.'s subsidiary Applied Nanotech, Inc. announce significant advancement in the application of carbon nanotubes for the flexible electronics industry.

ESL acknowledges the plastic electronics revolution on flexible substrates is here to stay and will meet their customers' challenges with off-the-shelf products, and with the development of proprietary or custom formulations.

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.

Creative Materials, Inc, offers a flexible, re-workable, electrically conductive adhesive, which has a unique advantage of adhering to most silicone and fluorinated substrates.

The IDTechEx conference Printed Electronics Asia in Tokyo on October 8-9 will reveal many new advances and initiatives by the giant corporations.

Scientists have developed a new form of stretchable silicon integrated circuit that can wrap around complex shapes.

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.

Dr Harry Zervos, Industry Analyst from IDTechEx says the move towards plastic electronics is a natural progression in the search for products and technologies which are 'greener', more efficient and ultimately more cost effective to produce.

The latest generation of E Ink's segmented display cells provides a viewable angle of nearly 180 degrees and can be viewed under a variety of lighting conditions from direct sun to low-level ambient light.

P-series silver-based conductor pastes are designed for use on low temperature plastic substrates typically found in such applications as display electrodes, touch screen sensors, heaters, RFID antenna, biosensors and membrane switches.

Opalux has invented a low-cost battery charge indicator that provides a constant reading of the charge and health of a battery.

The new electron injector material had a 66 per cent performance improvement in brightness and 30 per cent reduction in driving voltage.

OLED-T has the industry's leading electron injector and transport materials.

Scientists at the University of Tokyo in Japan have demonstrated

Nanosilver is so tiny it can go right to the surface of an organism and essentially shoot ions into the organism, says a research scientist.

Oregon State University has had a comprehensive program developing printed oxide electronics and electro-optics for some years.

Hewlett Packard described one of the most accomplished feats of engineering in reel to reel production of transistor circuits at Printed Electronics Europe.

Stretchable electronics is needed for many potential applications in healthcare and elsewhere.

Intrinsically conductive polymers are becoming more and more important for the electronics industry.

The darkest material ever measured has been created by researchers in the US, making it 4 times darker than the previous recorded record.

NanoDynamics will display its selection of metal flakes and powders for printed electronics industry applications at Printed Electronics Europe, April 8-9, 2008 in Dresden, Germany.

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

MacDermid Electronics Solutions has developed a novel additive circuit formation process called MicroCat.

Soligie Appoints Printed Electronics Veterans Richard Morris & Mark Duarte to Lead Business Development & Sales.

New developments in inks and imaging for the printed electronics industry will be presented by DuPont new market development lead Dr. Kerry Adams as part of DuPont Microcircuit Materials' (MCM) participation at IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe.

Photovoltaic innovator Konarka Technologies reports manufacturing breakthrough using FUJIFILM Dimatix inkjet technology for advanced materials deposition.

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

NIST, USA have set the stage for building the "evolutionary link" between the microelectronics of today built from semiconductor compounds and future generations of devices made largely from complex organic molecules.

Texas-based Nano-Proprietary, Inc. announced that its subsidiary Applied Nanotech, Inc. ('ANI") received a notice of allowance for its patent titled "Nanobiosensor and carbon nanotube thin film transistor.

The vibrant new printed electronics industry is being created as energetically in Germany as anywhere else in the world.

Jim Mellon has invested in Emerging Metals Ltd in the UK. He says photovoltaics will be

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.

Once again transistor radios made from carbon nanotubes make the news.

Nanotechnology researchers are developing the perfect complement to the power tie: a

OLED-T, UK announced a green phosphorescent OLED material with world class efficiency performance.

Investment community sees outperforming opportunities in printed semiconductor market.

The Japanese government has secretly been looking at probing the seabed from next spring for deposits of ultra-rare metals.

Researchers have found that a rubberlike, elastic film coated with a single layer of cardiac muscle cells can engage in lifelike gripping, pumping, walking, and swimming.

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

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.

MIT, USA researchers have created a new structured gel that can rapidly change color in response to a variety of stimuli, and could be used as an environmental sensor at food processing plants, where the sensor could indicate whether food that must remain dry has been overly exposed to humidity.

The researchers at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany will be focusing on printing processes for electronic and photovoltaic products whilst working towards developing technologies for printed electronics and 'functional packaging' over the next 3 years.

InkTec Co., Ltd. (

Consumer electronics will mostly be made by printing in the years to come, but the interesting question is whether it will be poisonous either at the level of the factory or the level of the user?

Many institutions in Portugal are exploring inorganic, organic and composite thin film transistors and even their potential biological interfaces.

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

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.

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.

Semprius Inc, a US based semiconductor technology company is developing unique patented technology for the transfer printing of high-performance semiconductors onto virtually any hard surface, including glass, flexible or rigid plastic, metal or other semiconductors.

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.

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.

July 2004

Dr Juha Hartikainen, R&D Director Panipol, Finland at Printed Electronics USA 2005

Mr Wilhelm Meyer, Managing Director Microdrop Technologies GmbH, Germany at Printed Electronics USA 2005

Mr Geva Barash, CEO Parelec Inc, United States at Printed Electronics USA 2005