The New Electronics - Antidote To The Recession

Many of today's electronic and electric devices are being banned to reduce global warming or poisoning or both, from the cadmium sulphide battery to the plasma television and incandescent lamp. Unfortunately, some "solutions" replace one problem with another such as the compact fluorescent lamp containing the poison mercury and glass. However, there is good news, every year during the next ten years will see the rollout of totally new electronic and electrical devices that will tackle these challenges, but also offer magical new capability. This is the New Electronics.

Everyone from architects to toy designers, brand managers, the food industry and doctors will have to think in a very different way if they are to use these breakthroughs to the best advantage. They include wearable, implantable for life, stretchable, tightly rollable, disposable, biodegradable and edible electronics. Much is profitable now; much will create new billion dollar businesses within ten years.

About Printed Electronics Europe
The largest conference on printed and potentially printed electronics, called "Printed Electronics Europe" is in Dresden, Germany on 7th - 8th April. Following record attendance of nearly 700 delegates and well over 50 exhibitors at its equivalent event in Silicon Valley in December, this IDTechEx conference covers all the above topics and more. See how new printed flexible transistor circuits, sensors, displays, lighting and other forms are being commercialised now and in the very new future. The IDTechEx conference, "Photovoltaics Beyond Conventional Silicon" takes place at the same time and place. This conference maps the launch of many forms of flexible solar cell designed for replacing everything from power stations to batteries, but also making totally new things possible in e-packaging, skin patches delivering drugs and mobile phones and laptops that will never have flat batteries.

Sessions on Healthcare and Bionic Man, Smart Substrates and Stretchable Electronics for Clothing illustrate the new paradigm. Indeed, Markus Klann will speak on "Printed Electronics - weird stuff: how people might come to use, hate, break or love it." Other talks cover imminent use in games, books, billboards, apparel, medical disposables, transport, consumer goods and more; everyone interested in these sectors should attend to see their future. Attendees will even see several ways in which these magic films can be made invisible, whether they produce power, process data, display, sense or, when needed, display moving colour images or illuminate.

The materials and printing methods to be used are moving on apace, and this will also be covered in depth. For example, we are close to printing copper to replace silver, which has been shown to act as an unwanted biocide. Soon we will print combined organic/ inorganic barrier layers to protect delicate, but potentially low cost, organic printed electronics. Also lighting is improving rapidly, as are potential replacements for transparent electrodes containing increasingly expensive indium. This $300B business-in-the-making is an antidote to the global financial meltdown. Little wonder that large sums continue to be invested in making it happen.

SOURCE: IDTechEx