 Emerging thin-film electronics applications will generate
$15.5 billion in revenue in the year 2011, according to a report from
NanoMarkets, an industry consulting firm. The report, "The New Thin-Film
Electronics, Large Area Electronics and Beyond", examines advances in
materials and production techniques in the semiconductor business.
By 2011, NanoMarkets expects that display applications using
thin-film electronics (excluding LCD displays) will reach $7.3 billion.
However, over the next two years the firm believes that the market will also
see significant new opportunities emerge from other applications of thin-film
electronics such as photovoltaics, batteries, sensors, information storage and
lighting. These new developments will involve some of big names -- such as
Sanyo, Sharp and Seagate -- as well as start-ups such as Konarka and
Innovalight.
While established thin-film technology has had an important
role in the electronics industry for many years, "the new thin-film
electronics" as termed by NanoMarkets, is being enabled by new materials
such as conductive polymers, high-k and low-k dielectrics, silicon inks and
carbon nanotube pastes. New processes such as printed electronics and atomic
layer deposition are also contributing to creating the new thin-film
electronics. Self-assembly techniques are also covered.
Some display manufacturers expect to see thin-film
transistors printed with nanoparticulate silver inks replace traditional ITO
(indium tin oxide) backplanes in the display based on lower costs, while
thin-film batteries and photovoltaic cells promise new ways of powering mobile
electronics and smart packaging.
Many of the new thin-film applications use very similar
materials and production technologies, so that as the sector advances firms
that have traditionally been active in thin-film displays could diversify into
manufacturing thin-film photovoltaics or lighting without major difficulties.
Markets include large area electronics (displays,
photovoltaic arrays, sensor arrays, lighting, etc.), information storage (disk
drives and memory chips) and semiconductor applications (next-generation interconnects
and gate coatings).
The report, out next week, includes forecasts through 2013
of all the major applications sectors and a guide to company activities.
A webinar is to take place on 7 March 2006, 10:00 AM EST to
present key findings from the report.
http://www.nanomarkets.net/ By Dr Mike Cooke
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