Rising from the ashes

The closure of several printed electronics operations has now resulted in phoenix operations rising from the ashes. To some extent, the closures are sometimes the result of the reduction in venture capital funds caused by the recession. Certainly, end users are usually the primary concern in most cases because many of these companies had yet to trade and they were anyway targeting relatively recession proof sectors such as consumer packaged goods, healthcare, military and other government sectors.

 

Some people left just before the demise of their company, some were there to the end. Some have bought assets from the receiver and others have started afresh or entered shell companies to create something new in the field.

 

Nanoident, the organic photosensor activity in Linz Austria was a spinoff from the Johannes Kepler University there and it failed. Two former Nanoident staff are now building other businesses in printed electronics. Former technical director of Nanoident Franz Padinger has joined Botest  in test equipment for printed electronics, creating a subsidiary Botest Printed Sensors GmbH. They have developed an OLED lifetime test system that monitors OLED performance parameters beyond luminance such as emission, colour and temperature. They also have test systems that focus on plastic electronics, organic solar cells and organic semiconductors.

 

Friedrich Ebensteiner left Nanoident to form Prelonic Technologies , a company working on printed displays and printed batteries using a roll-to-roll process. The fully integrated and interactive displays enable greeting cards with interactive visual elements and gaming cards with visual effects, marketing gimmicks and gift cards could be equipped with such modules. Logos, letters, numbers or other signs could appear with a tap of the finger.

 

 

Elumin8, the UK Company printing the most imaginative large area, inorganic ac electroluminescent displays, was shut by its parent company. German giant Bayer  in similar printed displays and collaborating UK OLED lighting start-up PolyPhotonixs run by former elumin8 CEO Richard Kirk continue the vision.

 

The very recent closure of the Motorola organic printed electronics operations in Germany and the USA resulted in Dr Andreas Schaller being out of a job in Germany so he has now set up Andreas Schaller Technology Consulting UG  specialising in hybrid printed circuits of any chemistry and continuing the former Motorola work in the European Commission PrimeBits program . In this project, a printable electric low-voltage nonvolatile memory is being developed for printed sensor, media and wireless-ID applications. The main strategy is to utilize printed technology where it has a competitive advantage compared to silicon technology.

 

Organic printed electronics manufacturer Printed Systems GmbH in Chemnitz Germany, which made the successful German Menippos football cards with ink stripe RFID, folded. We are told that cutbacks at Deutsche Post causing it to cancel a contract did not help. Their technology never was printed transistor RFID: It was just a conductive pattern, and the reading was done by a capacitive device, hence the extremely short reading distance. The same approach is tried now with new companies and material. For example, e-Pinc  making new conductive inks for mass printing and Crosslink GmbH  that prints circuits "connecting the real world to the digital" have resulted - both still in Chemnitz Germany.

 

It is probably too early to know if any phoenix is rising from the ashes of organic RFID Company ORFID, which closed recently but the earlier demise of the silver ink company Paralec in the USA has resulted in some sort of phoenix.

 

To learn more attend Printed Electronics Asia 2009  or Printed Electronics USA 2009 .