Screens and display elements in mobile phones, e-readers for electronic books and measuring devices are now well-established features of our networked world. To make the manufacture of these mobile mass displays more cost effective, organic electronics is providing technical solutions, including flexible control circuits.

Brewer Science,® Inc., and SouthWest NanoTechnologies, Inc. (SWeNT), have received a $6.5M award under NIST's Technology Innovation Program (TIP). The funding is in support of research and development programs that focus upon methodologies to attain the cost-effective production of high-purity, high-quality metallic and semiconducting carbon nanotube (CNT) inks. These advancements will enable production of a wide variety of high-performing electronic devices incorporating CNTs.

The demands placed on new, high-tech materials are continually increasing, and existing material systems are reaching their limits. Due to their exceptional electrical and mechanical properties, carbon nanotubes offer high potential for use in diverse applications.

The e-reader is a killer application involving printed electronics. Despite costing more than an i-Pod, the Amazon Kindle achieved 500,000 unit sales in its first year of trading last year and now we are talking of millions. The i-Pod, an iconic success, only achieved 300,000 unit sales in its first year of trading.

As we enter the New Year IDTechEx look back and summarises some of the main global trends in 2009 and gives some predictions, and indeed areas of opportunity, for the New Year.

So-Light project for OLED displays and special lighting released

The technical term is haptic touch. It refers to printed buttons that regain the interactive feeling of the old fashioned keyboard.

In an increasingly device-driven world, a Campbell-based company is planning for a future where consumers will no longer need to be tethered to an outlet, waiting to power up. G24 Innovations Inc. is developing a technology where everyone can power their personal devices on the go, with the power of the sun.

This article will explain some of the key properties of supercapacitors that design engineers creating energy harvesting circuits need to be aware of, and explore how to use supercapacitors in these circuits.

For LCDs, TFTs are only charging and discharging a capacitor (that is effectively what an LCD is electrically). Once the capacitor is charged the TFT can be switched off and the display continues to function.

Applied Laser Technology, Inc. (ALT) has announced new laser processing capabilities aimed directly at the printed electronics marketplace. These include large area machining, drilling, cutting, marking, and trimming capabilities, utilizing multiple wavelengths of lasers for addressing a wide range of materials.

Infinity Group Portfolio Company Power Paper and GE collaborate to develop self-powered OLED lighting

On December 10, the UK Knowledge Transfer Network had a meeting in Grove Oxfordshire on Emerging Display Technologies and Innovations. About 35 people attended. Professor Ian Underwood of Edinburgh University in Scotland described work on microemissive OLED displays under the title "Hypoled - Next Generation Display Platform ."

Dip an ordinary piece of paper into ink infused with carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires, and it turns into a battery or supercapacitor. Crumple the piece of paper, and it still works. Stanford researcher Yi Cui sees many uses for this new way of storing electricity.

Eastman Kodak Company is to sell their OLED business to a group of LG companies in a move to tighten Kodak's business portfolio.

At this weeks International Electron Devices Meeting, the nanoelectronics research center imec presents an innovative, simple and robust GaN-on-Si double heterostructure FET (field effect transistor) architecture for GaN-on-Si power switching devices.

The IDTechEx event Printed Electronics USA in San Jose CA December 1-4 retained its position as the world's largest gathering on the subject with 25% growth on the year before. 910 delegates flew in from 25 countries and there were 85 exhibitors, 100 presenters, 8 Masterclasses and many visits in Silicon Valley to centers of excellence in this "next big thing".

OTB Solar and Trident Solar today announce a partnership for bringing innovative, cost-saving inkjet technologies to the solar market.

ImageXpert's JetXpert system has been chosen by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a federal agency that works to advance measurement science, to perform accurate and repeatable volume and velocity measurements of single, in-flight droplets.

OTB Solar and Trident Solar have partnered to bring innovative, cost-saving inkjet technologies to the solar market.