Printed, Flexible and Organic Electronics

Electronics and electrics are becoming ubiquitous, the devices appearing on and in higher and higher volume products including e-labels and e-packaging. This calls for different forms of battery, capacitor and other energy storage because priorities such as environmental credentials, thinness and compatibility with energy harvesting (eg. solar cells) come to the fore alongside life and cost.

The first day of the conference (attended by more than 290 attendees) was focused on presentations from end users of energy harvesting and wireless sensor networks technologies, with the first presentation given by IDTechEx CEO Raghu Das, giving an overview of needs for energy harvesting as well as the three generations of technologies (active RFID, RTLS and mesh & WSN) that have evolved into the current market for Wireless Sensor Networks, a market due to reach US$1.75 Billion by 2019.

This week the IDTechEx events Energy Harvesting & Storage and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) & RTLS took place in Denver, CO, USA. The event was attended by more than 290 attendees, with a brilliantly diverse spread of those through the value chain - from component suppliers to solution providers to many end users from different industries.

Active RFID will rise from 10% of the total RFID market this year to 24% in 2019, meaning a huge $6.74 billion market.

Plug in hybrid electric cars are now prioritised by most major car manufacturers. Pure electric on- road cars are prioritised by Nissan and a host of vibrant start up companies, they have one thing in common. The cleverest, most expensive part of their planned vehicles is increasingly the traction battery.

While materials for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) are getting better and better, and encouraging news about record-breaking parameters in efficacy and luminance were published quite recently, one of the major problems in flexible lighting and display devices is still unsolved: the lifetime of such devices is too short, and hence, customers are not ready to pay, no matter how impressive and elegant the systems may look.

While some involved in OLEDs and OTFTs are moving out of the business of printed and potentially printed electronics, work on inorganic materials and compounds is increasing. The IDTechEx Printed Electronics Asia event in Tokyo will give a balanced view with many presentations being World firsts.

As forecasted by RFID Forecasts, Players, Opportunities 2009-2019, there has been a surge in orders for RFID in 2009. Despite the world's largest RFID project, the $6 billion China National ID card scheme, being completed a year earlier and now being just at replacement level, the global RFID market is rising 5% this year to $5.56 billion.

IDTechEx is seeking several exceptional sales candidates.

Speakers already confirmed include The US Navy SPAWAR, GE, Savi Technology, University of Michigan, Fisk University, Structural Graphics, MicroStrain, Axcess Technologies, The Facility, NREL and many others.