New trends in printed electronics

Europe's largest event on Printed Electronics, the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe 2010 in Dresden, Germany in April, will reflect new trends in the subject such as carbon nanotubes in conductive paper and transistors, printing silicon for enhancing solar cells, for transistors and other uses and printing copper at a fraction of the cost of silver.

 

The first killer application of printed electronics was flexible, light emitting ac electroluminescent displays on everything from animated t-shirts to buildings and that now has a new lease of life from over twenty radical improvements. The next big killer application has been e-readers and the new wave of these will be revealed. Flexible organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) as lighting and displays really are on the way. Polymers in printed transistors and photovoltaics have more and more uniques.

 

End users will be there in force with everything from printed solar bags to smart packaging and contactless railway tickets. There is a surge in new products and technologies from using supercapacitor principles in organic transistors to printing the new memristors. However, using the technologies in products will be a bigger theme this year because their applicability over most fields of human endeavour means that producers are spoilt for choice. What should be the priorities?

 

A new topic is printing liquid crystal devices (LCD), thought impossible until recently. The event covers use of printing to further value engineer existing LCD TV screen technology to, excitingly, printing complete LCDs to make rollable electronics that the users so eagerly seek. So where are we with transparent electronics and what is this new salt and paper battery? Who wants textile and other wearable electronics? What are the hurdles to printed electronics, this new business that all agree will exceed the silicon chip industry in size? How do you do the vital product integration and the challenging co-deposition of many different components on one flexible substrate? What are the new advances in materials? All is revealed in this unique event, which even has a major stream on printed photovoltaics which is in the market this year in many forms and chemistries. Speakers are flying in from Singapore, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, the USA and wherever exciting things are happening in this subject, including, of course, many countries of Europe.

 

IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe 2010  event is to be held in Dresden, Germany on April 13-14. This is, by far, Europe's largest event on the topic and the only one to give you an impartial view as to the big picture, covering all relevant chemistries, production processes, devices and territories. Above all, IDTechEx events provide more end users than any other - discussing their needs and experiences, providing that vital "reality check" to those walking the exhibition to appraise the technology for their business. Register for the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe now to save a huge 30% on attendee rates. See www.IDTechEx.com/peEurope  for details.