fantastic plastic

Cartamundi, Europe’s largest manufacturer of playing cards and card games, and Thin Film Electronics, developers of printed organic memory devices,

have entered into a commercial License Agreement and a joint R&D Program.

Cartamundi will use Thinfilm’s patented technology and will now enter into a joint R&D project with the objective to include memory capabilities for the development, manufacturing and sales of products in the markets of trading and collectable cards, retail and private label cards, casino cards, promotional cards and cards for games.[…]

Johan Carlsson, CEO of Thin Film Electronics stated that “[…] Cartamundi is the undisputed leader in the market of cards and games, producing over 10 billions of cards annually, making them the ideal partner specialised in high volume production of cards.[…]”

“[…] Thinfilm’s printable re-writable memory technology will enable us to add value by including a functionality that has been asked for by our customers. […] Our goal is to be in production, and to supply our customers with this new feature, already next year.” commented Chris Van Doorslaer, CEO of the Cartamundi Group.

press release [pdf]

Solvay, through their specialty polymer subsidiary Solvay Solexis, and Thin Film Electronics have announced plans to jointly develop materials for printed memory applications.

The joint development agreement will build on Thinfilm’s intellectual property for soluble memory materials, as well as extend Solvay’s intellectual property for functional polymer materials. Under the agreement, Solvay Solexis could acquire certain production and commercialization rights to Thinfilm’s memory technology.

Thin Film Electronics and Xaar have presented the first printed polymer memory device at the IPEX ‘06. From the presentation (available online; 12 MB PDF file):

A 100 bit non-volatile re-writable cross-point array memory device was presented, in which all layers were printed.
- top & bottom electrodes: conducting polymer Baytron P Jet HC (220um linewidth)
- dielectric layer: ferroelectric polymer
- substrate: PET foil
- contact pads: silver nano-particle ink

[previous post on Thin Film Electronics]

Thin Film Electronics (TFE) are developing low-cost non-volatile memory, consisting of a bistable polymer layer between two arrays of orthogonal addressing lines. This technology provides several advantages compared to conventional, silicon-based memory. As the memory function is a property of the acticve layer, no circuitry is required in the actial memory element. Further, the simple architecture allows stacking of multiple layers for greater capacity per unit area. Using printing methods to deposit the solution-based promises low manufacturing costs.

From recent coverage of Printed Electronics USA 05 by IDtechEx (Feb 13, 2006):

Thin Film Electronics of Sweden described how it can print memory on plastic film. It has now demonstrated kilobit level memory but seeks to license not produce and the gigabyte on a postage stamp, with its immense commercial potential, is still elusive.

TFE’s website does not provide a lot of information on the material used for the active layer, but according to some of their patents (US 6,982,895, US 6,937,500, US 6,841,818) a polymeric ferroelectric or electret material, such as PVDF, can be used. A more recently filed patent (US200524343) concerns interlayers (e.g. metal oxides or ternary ceramics) between the electrode(s) and the active polymer layer.

As reported here, Nantero is using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for a mechanical-switch type non-volatile memory (NRAM). Ribbons of nanotubes are suspended between raised points on a substrate. Applying a voltage to an electrode beneath a CNT bridge, causes the nanotubes to bend downwards until in contact with the substrate. Due to van der Waals forces, the nanotubes remain in the bent position without any applied voltage. The resulting non-volatility is a big advantage, but apparently speed and memory density are also higher than for standard DRAM.
The Economist (May 2003) likes the technology, too.

[Update:] coverage by Nature (Oct. 2004), for those with access.