Barrier films, Adhesives & Substrates

The new IDTechEx report, "Sensors 2021-2041" uniquely analyses the whole subject in the light of such seismic changes as the COVID-19 virus. The sensor business is in turmoil. The industries that spend most on sensors are changing as are the sensors.

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.

This article from IDTechEx examines whether flexible glass is the ultimate solution for flexible barriers and encapsulation.

A polymer aerogel combines the benefits of an aerogel with the conveniences of a plastic (i.e., polymer).

It took a decade and half to enable the first commercial products using flexible barrier or thin film encapsulation technologies. Contrary to some assumptions however, this success does not mean that the question of barrier technology is forever settled. Indeed, there is still much work to do to render flexible barrier technology a ubiquitous, widely-available, and low-cost component in devices of all sizes, sensitivity levels, flexibility degrees, and so on.

The need for flexible, transparent, ultrahigh performance, and low-cost barriers has long held back the promise of many flexible devices. Indeed, for long, it appeared as the grand challenge, and a potential showstopper.

Barrier Films and Thin Film Encapsulation for Flexible and/or Organic Electronics 2018-2028 offers a detailed technology analysis assessing R2R multilayer barrier (MLB) film technologies, various inline thin film encapsulation (TFE) techniques, R2R spatial atomic layer deposition (s-ALD), flexible glass and more.

The Voltera V-One is a PCB Printer for early circuit board prototyping and PE experimentation.

Back in 2013, we witnessed the launch by Samsung and LG of the first AMOLED displays deposited on plastic substrates, and the first efforts to encapsulate plastic and flexible displays that IDTechEx is forecasting will become more than a $16bn dollar market in the next 5 years.