Wider Interest In Printed Electronics

By Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman, IDTechEx

At a time of financial uncertainty, companies know they must accelerate their move into the future. That is why there is a huge interest in printed electronics, a subject that pushes all the right buttons — environmental, affordable and leading to a new market of $300 billion that is just there for the taking. That is why the giant corporations are attending Printed Electronics USA December 3-4 in San Jose, California. This is the new pervasive computing, with Apple, Brother, Motorola, NEC, National Semiconductor, Nokia, Ricoh, Sharp and UNISYS present. Nokia says, "Printed electronics is an innovative technology in which simple components are created by printing electrically conductive inks (nanoinks) onto surfaces such as plastic using standard printing processes. The technology allows us to create smaller electronic components — and smaller components mean more compact phones! Printed electronics can significantly decrease the size of a device by an estimated 50% from phones in 2007."

Reflecting the breadth of potential applications from healthcare to aerospace, entertainment and the book of the future, Abbott, BP, Walt Disney, Hallmark, Honeywell, ITW, Mitsui, Primark and, in consumer goods, Safeway, Kimberley Clark, Kraft and Procter and Gamble and many others in their sectors shall be present.

It is the future of labelling, printing and packaging, so it is no surprise that the $13 billion dollar companies DNP Corporation and Toppan Printing are flying in staff from Japan and Avery Dennison, Xerox, InkTec of Korea and the banknote producers of Canada and the USA will be present. In the military and aerospace sectors, Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and the UK Ministry of Defence will be represented. Of course many of these organizations are potential customers for the suppliers of the new electronics, making them of interest to the hundreds of smaller companies, universities planning spinoffs, investors and others that will be there. The largest chemical companies in the world are supplying the materials, as represented by delegates from the world's largest chemical companies BASF and Dow Chemical which have just bought large subsidiaries in this business - Rohm and Haas and CIBA — and Asahi Kasei, Bayer, DuPont, Sumitomo, Sun Chemical and Solvay.

Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman of analysts IDTechEx who are staging the conference and exhibition, says, "We are delighted with this event, the world's largest on this hot topic. We even have delegates from Mongolia, Colombia, Peru, Uganda, Poland and Australia attending! There is huge interest in the linked visits to local centers of excellence in printed electronics, the Masterclasses and the Investment Summit as well. Clients tell us that they realize that the losers will be those that simply think they can economise their way out of trouble. They know they must make and use printed electronics to participate in one of the greatest new waves of this century."

SOURCE: ID TechEx