Printed Electronics - the Big Picture

Bottom line

The bottom line is that printed electronics is on target to be a $300 billion business within twenty years. It will consist of many things from printed lasers to printed fuel cells and although OLEDs have huge potential in lighting and displays, making them printed for low cost, flexible and long life is proving more difficult than was previously anticipated so a shakeout of the hundreds of putative suppliers has commenced. Potential users and suppliers of printed electronics should look at the big picture, where prosperous, rapidly growing applications, including totally new concepts, are commonplace. The chemistry and physics is also changing rapidly to facilitate these advances, such as quantum dots of inorganic compounds, carbon nanotube composites, printing of nano silicon, new polymeric inks, active laminates to make light emitting displays work in bright sunlight. Many will be made on top of each other, giving a thinner device with smaller footprint than is possible with conventional electronics. Often that will be at one hundredth of the cost. The list goes on and on. Pay attention. The world is changing before your very eyes.