Printed electronics (PE) continues to offer opportunities for new technologies and applications, and it is receiving more notice as companies large and small develop new products. Printed Electronics USA 09, co-located with Photovoltaics USA 09, from Dec. 1-4 at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, CA, offered insights into the innovations from end users, materials and equipment manufacturers and university researchers.

Printed Electronics USA 09 fared very well, as more than 900 attendees came to the conference, a gain of more than 20 percent from the previous year. IDTechEx, the conference’s organizer, ensured that the wide gamut of topics were covered, from photovoltaics (PV) and displays to eReaders and printed sensors and much more.

“We’re delighted,” Dr. Peter Harrop, IDTechEx’s chairman, said after the conference concluded. “The conference was excellent. There was a tremendous swing to end users who attended. We saw major companies like General Dynamics, the U.S. military, and the big consumer product groups as well as major chemical companies like Hitachi and BASF, and companies like Adidas. We also saw a number of breakthroughs in technology.”

Keynote Talks

The opening session began with a series of keynote talks centered on the state of the industry and potential applications. Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx, Inc., spoke on "Printed Electronics Products: Who Wants What, When, Why and How Much." Das discussed routes to profitability, opportunities in the value chain, as well as a 10-year forecast.

Das cited 2010 sales of $900 million for the OLED market, $400 million for PV, $120 million for sensors and $100 million for eReaders, with high hopes for the future.

“By 2020, we envision OLED to be a $19 billion market, PV $17 billion, and e-paper $6 billion,” Das said. “The Key drivers are flexibility, which allows electronics to go in places whee it couldn’t go before while using less expensive substrates.”

Dr. Kenneth McGuire, principal scientist, Procter & Gamble, spoke about "Consumer Electronics Applications." McGuire noted that while Procter & Gamble sees great value in products which are enabled by printed electronics, there still exist gaps in many areas making commercialization difficult for much of its business.

“PE could help us stand out on the shelf,” McGuire said. “For us, value is not about cost. What we need is to create ubiquitous products that everyone wants to buy.”

Dr. Markus Strecker, wearable sports electronics engineering director, Adidas, USA, analyzed "The State of Smart Fabrics and Opportunities for Printed Electronics," an overview of smart fabric applications as well as potential needs. He noted that PE can be used to provide warmth, illumination and touch sensors, but added that power supplies are needed.

Health remains a major possibility for PE, and Dr. David Klonoff, medical director, diabetes research institute at Mills-Peninsula Health Services, USA, looked at "Diabetes Applications for Printed Electronics," including the potential for blood glucose measurements and dose injections.

Dr. Joseph Paradiso, associate professor at MIT, followed with "Electronic Skins, Wearable Sensing, and Ubiquitous Media,” another examination of the potential of flexible electronics for wearable sensors.

Dr. Devanand Shenoy, program manager, DARPA MTO, discussed "Printed Electronics Needs and Developments at DARPA," and Dr. Omkaram Nalamasu, vice president of Applied Materials, discussed "The Impact of Nanomanufacturing on Innovations in the Energy Industry."

Amir Mashkoori, CEO of Kovio, Inc., concluded the session with "Printed Silicon: Building Intelligence into Everyday Things." “The fundamental issues with item level tagging are tag cost and infrastructure,” Mashkoori noted. Printed silicon can help with costs, while the cell phone would eventually be the ideal Reader .

End-Users and Radical New Products

A trio of concurrent tracks began after lunch. The first focused on End-Users and Radical New Products. Tom Ales, research scientist for Kimberly-Clark, analyzed "Low Cost Conductive Material and its Applications," and how printed electronics could be applied to the nonwovens industry.

Marcus Rosenthal, director of manufacturing, Artificial Muscle, Inc., discussed his company’s “Reflex Technology.” Nils Hulth, vice president research and product development for Pricer AB, talked about the “Needs of the Electronic Shelf Label Industry,” and PE can impact the high volume market of ESL. Walt Bonneau, president of Cubic Corporation, followed with “Nano-Technology and Printed Electronics Detection Sensors,” with a look at practical approaches and creating cost effective sensors.

The Radical New Products session began with Milone Technologies, with Tom Nunno, director of marketing, discussing "eTape - A Low Cost Printed Electronic Fluid Level Sensor." Nunno noted that the company has only recently released its product, and sales are quickly outstripping production capabilities.

Harrop followed with a talk on “Importance of Basic Hardware Platforms," and Dave Wallace, manager US operations at InkSure Technologies, closed the track with "InkSure SARcode, Non-Line of Sight Barcode."

Printing Silicon Circuits, Explosive E-Reader Market and Paper Electronics

Track 2 focused on three topics. The first, Printing Silicon Circuits, featured talks by Kyle Benkendorfer, senior business development director of Semprius, Inc., who discussed “Printing Single Crystal Silicon (and Other High Performance Materials)," and professor David Britton, associate professor - department of physics, University of Cape Town, whose topic was "Printed Silicon in Electronics."

The second subject, the Explosive E-Reader Market, featured talks by Frank Canova, vice president, Plastic Logic Inc., who offered insight into "The eBook Reader That Means Business,” a preview of the Plastic Logic Que Reader. Sriram Peruvemba, vice president of marketing, E Ink Corporation, discussed "Creating Smart Surfaces With Plastic Displays." Dr. Robert Sprague, senior vice president of RD&E at SiPix Imaging Inc., talked about "SiPix Microcup Electrophoretics: Electronic Paper for Printed Displays,” which offered thoughts on the progress in color implementation.

Bob Barry, global business development, Astak/Team Research, closed that portion of the track with "New and Exciting eBook Reader Applications for Flash Memory ."

For Paper Electronics, professor Elvira Fortunato of Uni of Lisbon Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia, Portugal, gave a talk on "From e-paper to paper-e."

Photovoltaics

The third track centered on photovoltaics. The first portion, Organic and Composite Photovoltaics, featured talks by Intel’s Yuri Sylvester ("Organic Photovoltaic Research at Intel Labs"), Dr. Ye Zhang of University of South Florida, ("Organic Semitransparent Photovoltaic Energy Converter (OSPEC)"), G24 Innovations CEO John Hartnett ("Mass Production of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells"), Dr. Yue Wu, director of manufacturing for Solarmer Energy, Inc. ("Advances in Plastic Solar Cells") and professor Carlo Taliani, Organic Spintronics s.r.l, Italy, ("Room Temperature Deposition of Transparent Conducting Oxides (TCO) on Plastics.") Notably, G24i recently began commercializing its dye solar cell products, while Solarmer Energy reached 7.9 percent efficiency with its OPV cells.

The second portion of the track, Manufacturing the New Photovoltaics, included discussions by Mike O'Reilly, product manager - aerosol jet systems for Optomec Inc, ("Aerosol Jet Production Pathways for improved C-Si Cell Efficiencies") and OTB USA Inc. president Don Veri ("Leading Cost reduction in the Solar Industry.")

Zinc Oxide Transistors and Organics

The second day of the conference featured four concurrent tracks. Track 1 began with Zinc Oxide Transistors Become Popular, featuring talks by Kyungbae Park of Samsung, who LED off with "Development of Solution-Processed Oxide TFT Backplane and its Application to AMOLED." Dr. Andrew Grenville, CEO of Inpria Corporation, followed with " Amorphous Oxide Semiconductor TFTs." Dr. Burhan Bayraktaroglu, principal investigator, US Air Force, discussed "High Frequency ZnO Thin Film Transistors."

Dr. Sabine Renker, project manager, Merck KGaA, followed with "Printed Inorganic Electronics at Merck KGaA." Dr. Mark Mann of Cambridge University analyzed "The Performance of Indium Zinc Oxide Transparent TFTs Produced at Low Temperature,” and Warren Jackson of Hewlett-Packard concluded the portion of the track with "Stable Low Temperature Multicomponent Oxides."

New Developments with Organics, the second topic of Track 1, featured Professor Hadi Mahabadi, vice president and centre manager, Xerox Research Centre of Canada ("Printable Electronic Materials"); Frank Keohan, Clevios technical applications manager, H.C. Starck Inc, ("Advances in CLEVIOS PEDOT /PSS Coatings and Oligothiophene Semiconductors for Printed Electronics"); Frank Louwet, business manager for Agfa Materials ("Recent Development in ORGACON Formulations and Ink for Printable Electrodes") and Brendan Florez, business development manager, Polyera Corporation ("Functional Organic Materials in Electronic Devices.")

Metamaterials & Memristors featured talks by Dr. Nathan Cohen, CTO of Fractal Antenna Systems ("Developments with MetaMaterials"); Nadine Gergel-Hackett, researcher with NIST ("Flexible Memristors”); and Professor Ulf Leonhardt, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews ("Cloaking and Perfect Imaging").

Track 1 closed with talks centered on the Future of Printed Electronics, led off by Sir Harold Kroto of Florida State University, who focused on "Architecture in NanoSpace," and Kurt Piersol, lab manager for Ricoh, whose topic was "The Need for Speed: Responsive eReaders."

Displays and Carbon Nanotubes & Graphene

Track 2 featured two key topics. The first, Displays, included talks by Seth Coe-Sullivan, CTO of QD Vision, on "Quantum Light Optics: Delivering Warmth and Color to LED Lighting, and Hongzheng Jin, Ph.D candidate, Princeton University, USA, discussed "Printed OLEDs.

Joel Domino, president, Kent Displays Inc., talked about "Flexible Bistable Reflex Displays and Applications.” Dr. Anoop Agrawal, president of AJJER LLC, analyzed "Electrochromic Materials and Display Devices for Low Cost Printed Tags and Labels." Dr. J. Devin MacKenzie, director of technology, Add-Vision Inc., discussed "Polymer OLED Technology for Low Information Content Displays and Backlighting Applications,” while Andy Hannah, CEO of Plextronics, Inc., talked about "OLED Technology - Where It's Going and How to Get There.”

“OLED can have a dramatic impact on our world,” Hannah said.

David Pires, senior principal engineer, Rogers Corporation, closed the display portion of the track with "Applications in Printed Electronics," a look at the design and manufacture of el signage.

The topic of Carbon Nanotubes & Graphene was up next, with Professor Yang Yang, Dept. of Materials Science & Engineering, UCLA ("Developments with Hybrid Graphene-Carbon Nanotube Material (G-CNT)"); Dr. John S. Lettow, president, Vorbeck Materials ("Graphene Inks for Printed Electronics"); Professor Yi Cui, assistant professor, Stanford University ("Work with Printed Nanotubes for Super Capacitors"); Sohrab Kianian, vice president of business development for Nantero ("Carbon Nanotube Memory and Electronics"); Dr .David Brown, Canatu Oy CEO ("Low Cost, High Performance Carbon Nanomaterials Films for Energy, Electronics and Beyond"); and Elliott Garlock, NanoIntegris ("Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes") the featured speakers.

PV, Printed Power and Stretchable Electronics

Track 3 focused primarily on PV. "PV News at 8:30" was presented by Dr. Harry Zervos, technology analyst for IDTechEx. Paula Mints, principal analyst, PV services and associate director at Navigant Consulting, analyzed "Photovoltaics Markets: Silicon vs. Thin Film Technologies."

Dr. Nasser Karam, vice president, Boeing Spectrolab, discussed "Electric Energy Generation using Concentrating Photovoltaic III-V Solar Cell Technology." Dr. David Mitzi, research staff member, Physical Sciences Department, IBM Corporation/Thomas J. Watson Research Center, analyzed "Solution Processing of Device Quality CIGS Absorber Layers."

Dr. William Hou of UCLA talked about "Low-Temperature Solution-Processed CuInSSe Thin-Film Solar Cell." Professor Ciro Lenti, Solar Systems & Equipment S.R.L, discussed “A New CdTe Industrial Plant,” while Dr. Georg Ritter, technical sales Thin Film Division, centrotherm photovoltaics AG, analyzed “Turn-Key-Production Line for High Efficient and Low Cost CIGS Thin Film Modules.”

Dr. Damoder Reddy, president and CEO, Solexant Corp., followed with "Printed Inorganic Solar Cells." Michael Grainey, renewable energy advisor, Oregon Business Development Department, offered insight into "The State of Oregon's Renewable Energy Policies."

Printed Power followed, with talks by Dr. Robert Miller, CTO, and Dr. Shreefal Mehta, CEO of The Paper Battery Company Inc, discussed "The Ubiquitous, High Power, Energy Storage Solution - The Flexible "PowerWrapper.” Matthew Ream, vice president, marketing for Blue Spark Technologies, and Dr. Kate Stone of Novalia followed with "The Role of Printed Carbon-Zinc Thin Film Batteries in Interactive Printed Media."

“Printed electronics adds value to printed products,” Dr. Stone said. “Printing communicates through text and graphics. However, their communication is only ‘one way.’ Printed electronics enables ‘two way’ communication and interactivity. Applications are only limited by our imagination.”

The field of Stretchable Electronics was the topic of Sungjin Jo, postdoctorate student, University of Illinois, ("Flexible Inorganic Optoelectronic Devices on Thin Plastic Sheets via Multilayer Transfer Printing ") and David Icke, chairman, CEO, president, owner and managing director of MC10 ("Enabling Stretchable Single-Crystal Silicon CMOS Electronics.")

Printing Electronics

Track 4 featured a wide range of topics that looked at the production of PE. The first topic, Producing Integrated Components, began with Wolfgang Mildner, managing director, PolyIC GmbH & Co KG, who focused on “First Products Manufactured: PolyIC Runs Pilot Production." Mark Litecky, vice president of sales, offered "Case Studies: Enabling Customers to Realize New Products.” GSI Technologies, LLC CTO Dr. Gordon Smith followed with "Manufacturing Printed Electronic Devices"

Manufacturing New Electronics at Room Temperature included talks by Stan Farnsworth, vice president – marketing, NovaCentrix ("High-Speed Curing of Copper and Other High-Temp Materials on Low-Temp Substrates"), John Hannafin, CEO of NanoMas Technologies Inc., ("Printing Genuinely Nano Metals") and Dr. Kazunori Yamamoto, chief researcher, high performance materials R&D, Hitachi Chemical Co Ltd. ("Cu Ink for Inkjet Printing - Low Temperature Sintering.")

The third topic, Printing Electronics. What You Need to Know, was led off by Mutsumi Yasutake, general manager of Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, and Chris Rivas, national accounts manager, Mitsubishi Materials USA, who focused on "Slot Die Coating,"

Dr. Jurgen Daniel, senior researcher, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), discussed "Jet-Printing: From Drops to Electronic Devices." Koshi Okita, manager - new business development, Asahi Kasei Chemicals Corporation, focused on "Flexo Printing Technology for Printed Electronics Applications."

Dr. Kasiraman Krishnan, lead engineer, GE Global Research Center, examined "Printing: An Enabler for Sensors & Media Security Applications." Professor L Jay Guo, associate professor Guo Research Group, University of Michigan, discussed "Continuous Roll-to-Roll Nanoimprinting and Nano-inscribing with Applications to Organic Solar Cells." Peter Diepens, COO, PixDro b.v., analyzed "Inkjet Printing of Printed Electronic Applications," and Scott White, CEO, Nano ePrint Ltd., closed the fourth track with "Printed Programmable Logic."