Plastic Electronics Markets: A Technology Analysis and Eight-Year Forecast

Summary:

This report analyzes and quantifies the huge potential of "plastic electronics." NanoMarkets believes that over the next few years plastic electronics—using conductive polymers or organic molecules on a plastic substrate—will enable entirely new types of products that would not be economically viable using any other technology. Such products will include:

• Roll-up displays for mobile communications
• Flexible solar panels for buildings, cell phones and portable medical equipment
• Intelligent packaging and RFIDs
• Sensor arrays that can be "printed" on buildings
• Low-cost non-volatile computer memories and optical interconnects

In this report we examine in detail all the applications for which plastic electronics is suited:

• We discuss adoption time frames and provide eight-year forecasts for plastic logic technology in seven different product categories (processors/logic, memory, interconnects, thermal management, sensors, displays, and solar panels)
• For each of these product categories, we have broken out the kinds of applications in which they will be used -- everything from telecom infrastructure equipment to iPod-type devices.

This report begins with a thorough analysis of plastic electronics technology. We discuss in detail what the intrinsic advantages of plastic electronics are, what the current limitations are and how they will be resolved. We also take a look at what materials are and will be used for plastic electronics and how plastic electronics is being boosted by other developments in nanoelectronics.

We then continue with a discussion of emerging manufacturing approaches for plastic electronics. The dream of plastic electronics advocates is that it will enable circuitry to be printed in much the same way that books and newspapers are printed, radically lowering manufacturing costs compared to CMOS. But of the many different ways now being considered for making plastic electronic devices, which look most likely to succeed?

Finally, we examine how the plastic electronics industry is evolving and answer questions such as:

• Which major electronics and materials firms are investing in this area?
• What are the leading start-ups?
• Which OEMs are leading the pack in actually using plastic electronics in their products?
• How are new production methods lowering barriers to entry in this business?
• How far can firms succeed as IP-only businesses in plastic electronics?