Printed Electronics Market to See Substantial Growth in 2009

There are mainly three common application modes. Some enterprises use this technology to reduce costs, for example replacing the silicon chips in RFID tags with printed electronics; others use it to improve product flexibility or reliability, such as the printed electronics used in flexible e-book readers. In either case, innovative product design is indispensable. In addition, we have also found that many traditional electronic product equipment makers are now beginning to use printed electronics to cut costs, for example processing conductors by means of inkjet printing, thereby achieving the goal of shrinking circuit boards.

The market size of printed electronics and of potential printed electronics, including organic, inorganic and composite materials, will grow from US$1.92 billion in 2009 to US$57.16 billion in 2019. In the 2009 printed electronics market, 71% of the market share was held by relatively mature products — conductive inks (used in membrane key switches and flexible connectors, etc.), sensors (disposable blood pressure sensors) and organic light-emitting displays (OLEDs), among others.

Over the past year, organic electronics has also made tremendous progress in all respects, for example:

As the performance of inorganic materials improves, people have gradually increased their use of inorganic materials in producing thin-film transistors, thereby further achieving a balance between organic and inorganic materials.

The application scope of printed electronics in East Asia has been further expanded, and Japan has become the second-largest printed electronics application country in the region after South Korea. At present, many display giants in East Asia are studying replacing everything on display backplanes with printed electronics.

Solar cells such as CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide), DSSC (dye-sensitized) and OPV (organic photovoltaics) had a market share of about US$410 million in 2009, but this does not reflect the full picture of all photovoltaic devices on the market. Although CdTe (cadmium telluride) and aSi (amorphous silicon) solar cells have not yet been printed to date, their market potential has already been proven.

The number of enterprises entering this field is growing rapidly; at present, at least 2,250 organizations are conducting research on printed electronics technology, with research institutions and enterprises accounting for roughly half each.

In 2009, 35% of electronic products will be produced by means of printing, with the fastest growth in solar cells, OLEDs (printed on glass) and electronic paper displays, followed by thin-film transistor circuits, flexible OLEDs, sensors and batteries. By 2019, the market size of printed electronics will reach US$57.2 billion, of which 76% of products will be printed, and 73% of products will be produced on flexible substrates.

Electronic paper displays will generate an output value of about US$80 million this year, while the value of products using this technology is far higher than that figure — to date, such displays have been applied to various products worth more than US$1 billion.

In many fields, the commercial application of printed electronics is still at a stage that has just begun, and many products are simply copying the successful formula of thin-film batteries. Such products are flexible in use, but their price is markedly higher than other common button batteries. In fact, as the commercialization of other thin-film components continues to increase, the above situation will also gradually change.

At present, many thin-film transistor developers have postponed the time to bring their products to market, but we will still see some new products this year: PolymerVision will launch flexible displays based on organic transistors; and Kovio will launch RFID tags that use inorganic semiconductors.

So then, compared with inorganic materials, what are the development prospects of organic transistors, what products will appear, what will market demand be like, what challenges will they face, and how will the world respond? Let us wait and see!

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——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362310.html