The emerging flexible and printed microelectronics sectors have largely been limited to R&D and pilot lines.
Full-scale production hasn't been in play and prospects for broad commercialization of rollable displays and other potential products appeared to be several years away. The market potential may be vast, but it has remained just that---potential. But 2007 looks like the year where the potential will start turning into the actual, with the recent announcements that two new factories---the first of their kind---will be built in Europe.
UK-based Plastic Logic, flush with a staggering $100 million in new equity investments, announced in early January that it will build a factory to manufacture organic active-matrix display modules and other components at a site in Dresden, Germany, which is scheduled to ramp production in 2008. Last week, Polymer Vision, recently spun off from Philips, said it will partner with Innos to build what it calls the first production facility for organic electronic rollable displays in Southampton, UK, with commercial volumes expected later this year. Both Plastic and Polymer characterize their processes as low-temperature, thin-film transistor (TFT) approaches that do not require unique tooling, relying on available manufacturing tools from the flat-panel display industry and other sources. (In a blatantly obvious ploy for hipness cachet, Plastic Logic has also uploaded several videos at YouTube.)
Reading books in a rollable display format can be Kafkaesque.
(Photo courtesy: Plastic Logic)
So the timing couldn't be better for this year's Flexible Displays and Microelectronics Conference, which starts next Monday, Feb 5, at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort near Phoenix. After Monday afternoon's short course on printed electronics presented by Motorola, the conference goes into full swing Tuesday with 15 sessions over three days. The presentations cover the gamut of markets, applications, technologies, materials, and manufacturing, with input from the research and industrial communities.
I asked Robert Pinnel, CTO of the U.S. Display Consortium (which runs the conference), to share a few (hundred) words about the flexible display and microelectronics sectors. Here's what he wrote.
Flexible electronics hold enormous potential in sparking a new revolution within the electronics industry, representing a projected $136-billion market opportunity by 2020. Applications that can benefit from them are both evolutionary and revolutionary—from advances in lighting, sensors, displays, power systems and low-cost RFID tags to medical point-of-care products, integrated network systems to quickly detect potentially infectious agents, and large-scale sensing to monitor civil and agricultural infrastructure.
While the possibilities for flexible electronics are many, there are also major challenges that must be overcome to make it a viable industry. Like any emerging technology, the lack of essential tools, materials, and processes required for volume production is a key challenge for flexible electronics-- particularly for high-resolution, active, fully organic, and flexible systems. Some processes may parallel those used in traditional electronics (e.g., lithography, etch, deposition, ion implantation, inspection/metrology), but flexible electronics will also have differing needs in several significant aspects. A case in point, manufacturing flexible electronics in a roll-to-roll format will require submicron traces and interconnects on substrates that may be tens of meters in extent.
Extensive R&D in new materials (for substrates, barriers, encapsulation films, coatings and adhesives) will also be needed, especially for medical and life-science applications. Implantable sensors used to assess the injured or acutely ill, for example, must be constructed of materials that are nontoxic and stable and that can withstand harsh chemical environments.
Of course, it isn’t enough to develop the materials, tools, and processes for manufacturing the flexible electronics. We also need human capital, the intellectual infrastructure required for research, development, and manufacturing in this sector. That means a major educational and workforce development effort must be undertaken, which can only be accomplished through partnership and collaboration among all key parties in industry, government, and academia.
At USDC’s Sixth Annual Flexible Displays & Microelectronics Conference, industry luminaries from major corporate entities leading the flexible electronics charge will come together to tackle these and other critical issues. They will reveal the latest developments in basic sciences, product development, new materials, manufacturing technology, and anticipated market evolution for flexible electronics, helping to bring the commercialization of flexible electronics ever closer to reality.
I will be in Phoenix next week to attend the "Flex" conference as well as to visit some area companies. Watch for my postings from the Valley of the Sun.
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