Abstract
Ning Xiao, Dr Peter Harrop and the IDTechEx team have produced a major 283
page report analysing activity in organic and printed electronics in East
Asia, where much is happening but relatively little has been reported openly.
For the first time, it gives the contact details, background and activities of
the 196 organisations doing the most significant work in the region. This
includes 352 projects. It covers Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, India,
Bangladesh, Thailand and Singapore and the report is totally up to date,
having been researched entirely in 2007 and updated in 2008 with new profiles
and company updates. Companies, universities and other institutions are
covered. There are over 85 figures and ten tables, including much information
that has not been published before. Graphs and tables show the prevalence of
effort, by organisation and country, in OLED, electroluminescent and
electrophoretic displays, RFID, transistors, organic photovoltaics, inorganic
photovoltaics, battery and other development. Each profiled organisation has
contact details, background and other information and there are many slides
from recent and planned conference presentations and analysis of latest
printed and potentially printed products and their chemistry and physics.
Who is working on the hot topic of printing inorganic transistors? Which
organisations are launching new forms of e-book? Where are the big
innovations, including the breakthroughs in materials? Who has the most
patents and what are the topics? Where is there a recent surge in patents and
other activity? It is all here.
The bulk of the investment in printed electronics has been taking place in the
West, including many factories coming on stream in 2008. This is well
reported. However, there is now a surge of investment in printed electronics
in East Asia and many giant companies have entered the field for the first
time. East Asian activity is poorly reported in the main but nonetheless very
significant, because in East Asia they have much at stake. East Asia already
dominates in OLED production, with huge production and investment. The next
generation of OLEDs will be flexible and printed and East Asia must hold on to
that too. China is now the world' s largest user of RFID and it will shortly be
the largest supplier and these tags are increasingly printed. Indeed, even the
silicon chip in them will be replaced with printed logic at one hundredth of
the cost, so trillions can be sold every year.
IDTechEx has found a remarkable 48 organisations working on printed
transistors and their active materials in East Asia, with breakthroughs such
as printable amorphous GaInZnO invented in Japan, one organisation driving
OLEDs with polymer transistors and another commercialising light emitting
transistors. The plastic film scanner with no moving parts, e-skins, power
sheets, various forms of electronics in biodegradable paper, a flexible
organic battery that charges in only one minute, plastic film that acts as an
ultrasonic transducer and plastic "e-paper" flexible displays are among the
many new inventions being commercialised in the region. Many research programs
that IDTechEx has examined involve other startling innovations. Much of this
is rooted in low profile work from a long time ago and involves companies not
usually associated with the subject. For example, Matsushita has patents on
organic electronics going back to 1991.
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