New Direction for Printed Electronics in 2008

Room for many types of transistor

Transistors are the engine of this revolution. 2007 saw 340 developers of these devices with none selling anything but that was just the calm before the storm. With Kovio launching its printed silicon nanoparticle transistors in late 2008, Cubic Corporation is looking to use them in tickets to the worlds favorite RFID specification - ISO 14443. By contrast, organic semiconductors only have one hundredth of the mobility, inhibiting work at the higher frequencies, and no one can yet match Kovio in printing thousands at a time but organic transistors can be made at very high speed on very low cost polymers using very little material and they are compatible with organic sensors, displays and so on. Improvements are rapid at Sony, Poly IC and elsewhere. Indeed CimaNanotech of Israel also has a breakthrough to announce. The University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland will give an overview of thin film work in that country.