David Savastano, Editor06.28.11
As LOPE-C 2011, Large-area, Organic and Printed Electronics Convention, organized by the OE-A (Organic Electronics Association), prepares to begin its two days of conferences today at the Messe Frankfurt, there is a strong sense of optimism among attendees that the printed electronics (PE) business is beginning to take off.
Risto Huvila, COO of Enfucell, a printed battery manufacturer, said that the industry’s growth can be seen in the quantities companies are asking for from Enfucell.
“About a year ago this time, we were receiving our first inquiries for tens of millions of batteries,” Huvila said. “In December, we received our first inquiries for hundreds of millions of batteries. A few weeks ago, a major corporation showed up with a need for a billion batteries. These increases tell us there are a lot of developmental projects out there, and projects are starting to resume.”
Geir Harald Aase, vice president communications and IR, Thin Film Electronics ASA, noted that Thinfilm has been actively creating new products, such as Thinfilm Memory, a 20-bit non-volatile rewriteable memory printed in a roll-to-roll process, and the Thinfilm Memory Controller, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).
Most recently, the company launched Thinfilm Passive Array Memory, a fully printed non-volatile rewriteable memory suitable for secure documents. In addition, the Thinfilm has partnered with PARC to develop new systems.
“We have been launching products, transforming ourselves into a product company,” said Aase.
Wolfgang Mildner, managing director, PolyIC GmbH & Co. KG and OE-A chairman, said that he is seeing progress in the PE field, both on the market side as well as on the technical side.
“Regarding the market, progress within PolyIC is being made through products in the area transparent conductive films (PolyTC) that are offered to the market and are already used in various applications at the customer,” Mildner added. “For example, there are first applications in the range of home automation.”
Dr. Martina Weidner, R&D head of ALTANA Technology Platform Printed Electronics, noted that ALTANA has been active in the PE field since 2007 with its Elantas subsidiary, which produced dielectrics. In March, the company set up a cross-company platform, utilizing the expertise of Eckart, a metallics specialist; BYK Chemie, which offers dispersions for carbon nanotubes as well as additives; and Actega, which produces inks and adhesives.
“Printed electronics is very close to our core businesses, and the potential for growth is a driver,” Dr. Weidner said.
Equipment manufacturers say they are seeing more interest, from the laboratory to production.
“We have seen huge progress, with more inks and equipment to print electronics,” said Udo Dittmar, president, Daetwyler R&D Corporation.
Louis R. Panico, CEO of Xenon Corporation, said that Xenon is seeing a very high response from companies looking to investigate the efficacy of Pulsed Light Sintering for their products.
“This is coming mostly from organizations that wish to do R&D,” Panico added. “It is generally recognized that printed electronics production is longer term due to the nature of technical issues.”
“We are seeing more interest in printed electronics, and business is starting to flow,” said Mathias Borella, sales and business development manager for Ceradrop. “We have a wide range of very promising projects in OPV and flexible substrates.”
Stan Farnsworth, vice president of marketing for NovaCentrix, said that NovaCentrix is seeing strong growth in PE.
“I still see development in both current participants and new entrants into the printed electronics space,” Farnsworth said. “Photovoltaics and display applications continue to be strong, and I see significant activities in new materials development throughout the supply chain. Smart packaging development and new interest in alternatives to traditional copper flex circuit manufacturing methods should also be noted.”
“We see an ongoing request on OLED lighting equipment, thin film batteries and OPV,” said Thomas Kolbusch, vice president of Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH. “Specifically, OPV had an enormous growth the last half year and is aggressively picking up in Asia. We also see more start-ups in Europe that are in the market or are preparing to go into the market.
“There is a lot of investment in semi-production lines in technology, such as in key clusters like the VTT Printocent in Oulu, which will get a two-floor printing, coating, laminating, nano-imprint and die cutting line from us this year,” Kolbusch added. “In size, speed and number of production processes, it is the biggest installation of its kind in Europe. We are also discussing similar lines in North America and Asia at the moment.”
Improvements
Still, attendees and exhibitors agree that the PE industry needs to make gains in several areas in order to become more successful. Further gains in matching materials and equipment is one area of importance.
“The PE industry still has to see more R&D to leverage the full potential of the PE technology, e.g. better materials, more efficient and precise processing,” Mildner said. “On the other hand, more field applications have to be pursued with customers so that the products can be better adjusted to the customers’ requirements.”
“The key to moving forward is the successful identification of matching inks, substrates and processes,” Panico said. “We do see these needs being met; we are closer than ever to realizing this goal. We are working with ink companies in Asia, Europe and U.S. to help drive a solution.”
Developing unique, complete solutions is seen by end-users as critical.
“We see the need for system analysis and customer service,” Dr. Weidner said. “Each customer needs their own solution.”
“The industry is seeking a completely developed process that is able to offer throughput,” Mr. Borella added.
The lack of government funding is putting printed electronics manufacturers at a disadvantage in the U.S. and Europe.
“There is no government backing in the U.S., which means we must make a lot of investment to compete with companies in countries that get government funding,” Dittmar said.
“We need ground breaking products, more start-up funding in Europe and a joint initiative here in Europe from industry, R&D and European Union to combine excellent R&D results with industrial market approaches under the umbrella of a joint European Union initiative, like we already perform at the OE-A,” Kolbusch said. “We need more funding for industrial research in market-ready products. We have to build production centers for start-ups and other companies which want to produce printed electronics products. Coatema has Europe’s biggest R&D center related to the number of pilot coaters and this year we will install three new units, which are dedicated to printed electronics.”
To help meet these needs, companies are offering new products at LOPE-C 2011.
“NovaCentrix continues to be focused on helping our customers generate value by offering a range of products at economical pricing and uncompromised performance,” Farnsworth said. “At the LOPE-C event, we will continue to present our PulseForge processing tools. As an example of the materials innovation possible with these tools, we will also be presenting our latest Metalon copper-oxide reducing ink, ICI-020. This water-based screen ink becomes copper thin-film after processing, and is available right now at $75/kg in volume orders.”
Mildner said that PolyIC shows applications of resistive and capacitive touch screens, and even multi-touch screens at its booth. Additionally, PolyIC will announce at LOPE-C that it is now also working on OPV-based products.
Panico said that though a joint effort with Coatema, Xenon is showcasing an R&D roll-to-roll system utilizing Xenon’s Sinteron-500 Printed Electronics Sintering Tool.
“We are showing a modified version of our Smartcoater, which we showed last year and since then sold more than 20 times,” Kolbusch added. “This time the Smartcoater is equipped with a fully functional Xenon Flashlight, and we again are running coating trials. This new sintering technology and electrical sintering will be two focus areas for the rest of the year. We also will introduce later this year a new machinery concept, called the BC3G, for upscaling into production based on a revolutionary clean room and inert atmosphere compatible click and coat concept on 300 or 500 mm working width.”
Outlook for PE
As interest grows in printed electronics, companies are looking closely at the manufacturing side, where each printing proces has its advantages. For example, Dittmar said that PE is a constantly growing market, and there is increasing interest in gravure.
“We are seeing more and more people who started in inkjet in the lab, and are interested in gravure for mass producing their products,” Dittmar said. “We are getting many new inquiries and seeing more interest in our MicroStar and AccuPress 3.”
Borella noted that inkjet offers personalization, which is valued in many applications.
“Customers want to utilize personalization that inkjet offers in their products, to mass produce customized components,” Borella said.
Kolbusch anticipates more products reaching the market in the near future.
“We see growth in the R&D market, pilot production and R2R, near term, medium term and long term respectively,” Panico noted. “We think this has the potential to have a greater effect on electronics industrial production than the invention of the transistor.”
‘Near term, we will see more Asian activities in areas like OLED, display and also OPV, and we will see the first products entering the market in bigger quantities later next year,” Kolbusch said. “In the middle term, we need to establish real and stable markets for printed electronics until 2015, otherwise the market and investors could be disappointed and turn to other technologies.”
Ultimately, Mildner is optimistic about the opportunities ahead for printed electronics.
“Our forecast is sunny for the PE industry,” Mildner concluded.
Photo courtesy of PolyIC GmbH & Co. KG
“About a year ago this time, we were receiving our first inquiries for tens of millions of batteries,” Huvila said. “In December, we received our first inquiries for hundreds of millions of batteries. A few weeks ago, a major corporation showed up with a need for a billion batteries. These increases tell us there are a lot of developmental projects out there, and projects are starting to resume.”
Geir Harald Aase, vice president communications and IR, Thin Film Electronics ASA, noted that Thinfilm has been actively creating new products, such as Thinfilm Memory, a 20-bit non-volatile rewriteable memory printed in a roll-to-roll process, and the Thinfilm Memory Controller, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).
Most recently, the company launched Thinfilm Passive Array Memory, a fully printed non-volatile rewriteable memory suitable for secure documents. In addition, the Thinfilm has partnered with PARC to develop new systems.
“We have been launching products, transforming ourselves into a product company,” said Aase.
Wolfgang Mildner, managing director, PolyIC GmbH & Co. KG and OE-A chairman, said that he is seeing progress in the PE field, both on the market side as well as on the technical side.
“Regarding the market, progress within PolyIC is being made through products in the area transparent conductive films (PolyTC) that are offered to the market and are already used in various applications at the customer,” Mildner added. “For example, there are first applications in the range of home automation.”
Dr. Martina Weidner, R&D head of ALTANA Technology Platform Printed Electronics, noted that ALTANA has been active in the PE field since 2007 with its Elantas subsidiary, which produced dielectrics. In March, the company set up a cross-company platform, utilizing the expertise of Eckart, a metallics specialist; BYK Chemie, which offers dispersions for carbon nanotubes as well as additives; and Actega, which produces inks and adhesives.
“Printed electronics is very close to our core businesses, and the potential for growth is a driver,” Dr. Weidner said.
Equipment manufacturers say they are seeing more interest, from the laboratory to production.
“We have seen huge progress, with more inks and equipment to print electronics,” said Udo Dittmar, president, Daetwyler R&D Corporation.
Louis R. Panico, CEO of Xenon Corporation, said that Xenon is seeing a very high response from companies looking to investigate the efficacy of Pulsed Light Sintering for their products.
“This is coming mostly from organizations that wish to do R&D,” Panico added. “It is generally recognized that printed electronics production is longer term due to the nature of technical issues.”
“We are seeing more interest in printed electronics, and business is starting to flow,” said Mathias Borella, sales and business development manager for Ceradrop. “We have a wide range of very promising projects in OPV and flexible substrates.”
Stan Farnsworth, vice president of marketing for NovaCentrix, said that NovaCentrix is seeing strong growth in PE.
“I still see development in both current participants and new entrants into the printed electronics space,” Farnsworth said. “Photovoltaics and display applications continue to be strong, and I see significant activities in new materials development throughout the supply chain. Smart packaging development and new interest in alternatives to traditional copper flex circuit manufacturing methods should also be noted.”
“We see an ongoing request on OLED lighting equipment, thin film batteries and OPV,” said Thomas Kolbusch, vice president of Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH. “Specifically, OPV had an enormous growth the last half year and is aggressively picking up in Asia. We also see more start-ups in Europe that are in the market or are preparing to go into the market.
“There is a lot of investment in semi-production lines in technology, such as in key clusters like the VTT Printocent in Oulu, which will get a two-floor printing, coating, laminating, nano-imprint and die cutting line from us this year,” Kolbusch added. “In size, speed and number of production processes, it is the biggest installation of its kind in Europe. We are also discussing similar lines in North America and Asia at the moment.”
Improvements
Still, attendees and exhibitors agree that the PE industry needs to make gains in several areas in order to become more successful. Further gains in matching materials and equipment is one area of importance.
“The PE industry still has to see more R&D to leverage the full potential of the PE technology, e.g. better materials, more efficient and precise processing,” Mildner said. “On the other hand, more field applications have to be pursued with customers so that the products can be better adjusted to the customers’ requirements.”
“The key to moving forward is the successful identification of matching inks, substrates and processes,” Panico said. “We do see these needs being met; we are closer than ever to realizing this goal. We are working with ink companies in Asia, Europe and U.S. to help drive a solution.”
Developing unique, complete solutions is seen by end-users as critical.
“We see the need for system analysis and customer service,” Dr. Weidner said. “Each customer needs their own solution.”
“The industry is seeking a completely developed process that is able to offer throughput,” Mr. Borella added.
The lack of government funding is putting printed electronics manufacturers at a disadvantage in the U.S. and Europe.
“There is no government backing in the U.S., which means we must make a lot of investment to compete with companies in countries that get government funding,” Dittmar said.
“We need ground breaking products, more start-up funding in Europe and a joint initiative here in Europe from industry, R&D and European Union to combine excellent R&D results with industrial market approaches under the umbrella of a joint European Union initiative, like we already perform at the OE-A,” Kolbusch said. “We need more funding for industrial research in market-ready products. We have to build production centers for start-ups and other companies which want to produce printed electronics products. Coatema has Europe’s biggest R&D center related to the number of pilot coaters and this year we will install three new units, which are dedicated to printed electronics.”
To help meet these needs, companies are offering new products at LOPE-C 2011.
“NovaCentrix continues to be focused on helping our customers generate value by offering a range of products at economical pricing and uncompromised performance,” Farnsworth said. “At the LOPE-C event, we will continue to present our PulseForge processing tools. As an example of the materials innovation possible with these tools, we will also be presenting our latest Metalon copper-oxide reducing ink, ICI-020. This water-based screen ink becomes copper thin-film after processing, and is available right now at $75/kg in volume orders.”
Mildner said that PolyIC shows applications of resistive and capacitive touch screens, and even multi-touch screens at its booth. Additionally, PolyIC will announce at LOPE-C that it is now also working on OPV-based products.
Panico said that though a joint effort with Coatema, Xenon is showcasing an R&D roll-to-roll system utilizing Xenon’s Sinteron-500 Printed Electronics Sintering Tool.
“We are showing a modified version of our Smartcoater, which we showed last year and since then sold more than 20 times,” Kolbusch added. “This time the Smartcoater is equipped with a fully functional Xenon Flashlight, and we again are running coating trials. This new sintering technology and electrical sintering will be two focus areas for the rest of the year. We also will introduce later this year a new machinery concept, called the BC3G, for upscaling into production based on a revolutionary clean room and inert atmosphere compatible click and coat concept on 300 or 500 mm working width.”
Outlook for PE
As interest grows in printed electronics, companies are looking closely at the manufacturing side, where each printing proces has its advantages. For example, Dittmar said that PE is a constantly growing market, and there is increasing interest in gravure.
“We are seeing more and more people who started in inkjet in the lab, and are interested in gravure for mass producing their products,” Dittmar said. “We are getting many new inquiries and seeing more interest in our MicroStar and AccuPress 3.”
Borella noted that inkjet offers personalization, which is valued in many applications.
“Customers want to utilize personalization that inkjet offers in their products, to mass produce customized components,” Borella said.
Kolbusch anticipates more products reaching the market in the near future.
“We see growth in the R&D market, pilot production and R2R, near term, medium term and long term respectively,” Panico noted. “We think this has the potential to have a greater effect on electronics industrial production than the invention of the transistor.”
‘Near term, we will see more Asian activities in areas like OLED, display and also OPV, and we will see the first products entering the market in bigger quantities later next year,” Kolbusch said. “In the middle term, we need to establish real and stable markets for printed electronics until 2015, otherwise the market and investors could be disappointed and turn to other technologies.”
Ultimately, Mildner is optimistic about the opportunities ahead for printed electronics.
“Our forecast is sunny for the PE industry,” Mildner concluded.