Printed, Flexible and Organic Electronics

This is the first of a three-part series of articles on haptics. Haptics involves the use of technology to stimulate the sense of touch. IDTechEx have been covering the technology behind this important market sector for the last five years, and have just released their latest report: Haptics 2020-2030.

Quantum dots (QD) are a success story in displays. The current incumbent mode of integration is film type (enhancement film). The value chain for this is well-established. The technology can be integrated in large displays (TVs) from 27" to 98". This article provides a brief look at multiple key applications.

Our report, In-Mold Electronics 2019-2029: Technology, Market Forecasts, Players, suggests that in-mold electronics can become a market larger than $750m by 2028. The market take-off will however occur only around 2023 or 2024, if not later. This is despite the fact that the technology has been in the making for many years. Indeed, first near-success in the automotive sector came as early as 2013/2014.

On November 20th and 21st, the 16th annual Printed Electronics USA event will take place in Santa Clara, California - the heart of silicon valley. Record bookings to date include 178 exhibiting companies, hailing from 25 countries, and a total of 250 speakers. The event is expected to exceed 3,500 attendees. Attendees registering by August 16, 2019 can save 30%.

Global awareness of climate change and pollution is increasing, but finding ways to halt our dependence on fossil fuels and plastics is proving extremely difficult. One possible solution is to shift away from petrochemicals towards a biobased feedstock to make plastics, but how realistic is this proposal? IDTechEx uncovers the factors influencing adoption of biobased polymers in their report, "Biobased Polymers 2018-2023: A Technology and Market Perspective".

Flexible and foldable high-performance barrier or encapsulation technology had long represented a technology challenge. The industry spent a decade and a half optimizing the approaches and the processes to achieve large-area production-grade results. The development however has not ended. Indeed, the commercial journey towards flexible and foldable devices is only just beginning. As such, the development of flexible barrier technologies still has far to travel.

IDTechEx has studied the printed electronics market since 2002. Of course, we're not just looking at materials that are printed, but also devices that are flexible, organic, large area—in reality, there isn't a good phrase to encompass the huge set of enabling materials, processes and components that are radically changing electronics as we know it. The phrase "not conventional electronics" doesn't really cover it, as some aspects of printed electronics are mature today, having been used for many years.

Tiny infrared lasers offer 3D sensing functionality for consumer electronics like smartphones and robots like self-driving cars. In this article, the technology consulting firm IDTechEx demonstrate how advances in laser technology and decreases in laser price enable novel applications in optical sensing.

The evolution of diode laser price and performance is rapidly opening new markets. In this article, the technology consulting firm IDTechEx demonstrate how advances in semiconductor laser technology enable novel applications in laser material processing and industrial manufacturing.

Every year IDTechEx Research publishes an article that reflects the latest trends in the conductive ink industry. These articles are based on IDTechEx Research's report "Conductive Ink Markets 2019-2029: Forecasts, Technologies, Players", which is the result of ongoing research over the past eight years. This year IDTechEx will give an update on multiple less mature trends which offer high growth potential.