fantastic plastic

PolyIC, BASF, Evonik Industries, Elantas Beck and Siemens have announced the launch of a new German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)-sponsored alliance project called MaDriX to advance the development of high-performance printable Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. […]

PolyIC leads the consortium engaged in the three-year joint project. The total investment sum amounts to some €15 million, with the BMBF contributing approximately €8 million. The project is funded as part of the BMBF’s 5th Framework Program “Key Technologies – Research for Innovations, Communications Technology Sector.” The German Aerospace Center, DLR, is acting as project sponsor. With MaDriX, the companies involved in the alliance and the federal ministry will secure Germany’s current leadership as a research base in the printable electronics sector. […]

The close cooperation between the companies involved is a key to the success of the MaDriX project. PolyIC engages with the issues of component characterization, process development and setting up demonstrators. BASF, Evonik Industries and Elantas Beck will supply new materials to produce semiconductors and insulators for use in electronic circuits. Siemens is developing new real-time visual print inspection processes for quality control in the printing process. A number of universities and research institutes are also involved in the MaDriX project.

Konarka, developers of organic photovoltaics,

today announced it has raised $45 million in private capital financing. The financing was led by Mackenzie Financial Corporation, a leading investment management firm with over $60 billion in assets under management, and was co-led by existing investor, Good Energies, a leading investor in the renewable energy industry. Lead investors from prior rounds also participated, including Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), Asenqua Ventures, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and 3i. Other participating current investors include Vanguard Ventures, Chevron Ventures, Massachusetts Green Energy Fund, NGEN Partners and Angeleno Group. The financing was agented by Lehman Brothers.

From the press release:

Sumitomo Chemical Company (Sumitomo Chemical) and Cambridge Display Technology (NASDAQ: OLED) (CDT) today jointly announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement whereby Sumitomo Chemical will acquire CDT, a developer of technologies based on polymer organic light emitting diodes (P-OLEDs). Under the merger agreement, Sumitomo Chemical will acquire all outstanding shares of CDT common stock at a price of $12 per share in cash, for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $285 million. The merger consideration represents a 107 percent premium over CDT’s 90-day average closing share price and a 95 percent premium over CDT’s closing share price of $6.15 on July 30.

CDT and Sumitomo Chemical have been working together under the Sumation joint venture since 2005.

From the Press release: (pdf, html)

BASF and Bosch are to cooperate in the innovative field of organic photovoltaics (OPV) and are founding members of the technology initiative of Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). [… ] Last year, photovoltaic modules had a global market volume of €8 billion. The segment is expected to grow by more than 20 percent annually until 2020. The BMBF will provide €60 million for research to develop this highly attractive market, while the initiative’s current industry partners – which include, alongside BASF and Bosch, Merck (Darmstadt) and Schott (Mainz) – plan to spend up to €300 million. […]

Stake in Heliatek

To further develop the new technology, BASF and Bosch are also cooperating on special research activities with the Dresden-based company Heliatek GmbH. BASF Venture Capital GmbH and Robert Bosch GmbH are each investing €1.6 million in the start-up company, which was founded in 2006. The other investors are Wellington Partners and the ‘High-Tech Gründerfonds’. Heliatek specializes in the manufacture of new-generation organic solar cells. The company is working on an ultra-efficient technology to build large-scale modules on cheap, flexible substrates using a roll-to-roll production process.

BASF is conducting research into semi-conductive organic materials with high thermal and photo-thermal stability. […] BASF contributes its broad-based expertise in the field of organic electronics and the design, synthesis and production of complex organic compounds to the project. […]

The researchers want to develop organic solar cells that convert at least ten percent of the incident light into energy and offer a service life of more than ten years. BASF’s “Joint Innovation Lab – Organic Electronics”, which was opened last year in Ludwigshafen, acts as a cooperation platform for the industry and university partners. Experts from a range of disciplines are also working on organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) at the JIL, a technology also based, like organic photovoltaics, on organic semi-conductive materials.

According to a new report by NanoMarkets,

the market for OLEDs used in displays and lighting applications is expected to reach $10.9 billion ($US) by 2012 and grow to $15.5 billion by the year 2014.

The report discusses the use of OLEDs for mobile devices, flexible/rollable displays, and lighting applications.
[via CNET news]

DisplaySearch

has updated its 2006 OLED Technology Report, a comprehensive examination of the fledgling OLED industry, which reached revenues of $491M in 2005, up 8% Y/Y, and unit shipments of 55.8M, up 72%. Updates are due to a number of recent changes affecting the OLED industry:

* Liquidation of SK Display
* TMDisplay and Seiko Epson de-emphasizing commercialization of AMOLEDs
* Pioneer closing its ELDis JV and the concurrent end of its AMOLED activity
* Sharp reduction in small/medium panel ASPs due to over capacity in TFT LCDs
* Continuing difficulty in using LTPS backplanes for AMOLEDs

One of the unique features of the report is a forecast of the OLED capacity as shown in Table 2 by active, passive, SM and P-OLED technology and the associated organic material usage in weight and in revenue, differentiated by emitting and conducting layers for both small molecule and P-OLEDs. The organic material is forecast to grow from $220M in 2005 to $549M in 2010, driven by the increased capacity of the AMOLED display makers.

*Includes material used in production and R&D facilities for 2” displays

NE Asia is reporting on iSuppli market predictions for flexible displays.

Note that according to their prediction, flat or formed displays (not bent during use) will take the lion’s share, while

True flexibility/rollability will appear in displays with small shipments in 2008, and will become a US$59 million market in 2013 […].

Challenges for the flexible display industry are listed as:
- the OLED industry’s promised shift to flexible has still not happened
- large investments are required in manufacturing infrastructure *
- new, unknown market

* [While this is certainly true for new deposition/patterning methods (e.g. inkjet printing) the hurdle is much lower for companies using traditional lithography.]

 

 

NanoMarkets predictions for the OLED and e-paper, smart packaging, and thin-film photovoltaics industries:

Markets for OLED and Paper-Like Displays to Total $10.2 Billion by 2011:

• combined sales of OLED displays and paper-like displays will reach $10.2 billion by 2011 and then go on to reach $14.7 billion by 2013.
• shelf-edge displays will be the biggest opportunity for the paper-like display business in the next few years, generating $1.2 billion in annual revenues by 2011.
• OLED televisions will reach $2.2 billion in revenues in 2011
• by 2011, flexible displays will account for $1.7 billion in revenues.

Smart Packaging Market to Reach $4.8 billion by 2011:

• The global smart packaging market will grow to $4.8 billion in 2011 and reach $14.1 billion in 2013
• Smart packaging will account for over $1.1 billion in printable electronics components by 2011 growing to $4.2 billion in 2013
• Smart packaging will also consume $1.1 billion in printable and chip-based RFID tags by 2011

Thin Film and Organic Photovoltaic Market To Reach $2.3 Billion ($US) in 2011:

• Integrated building and construction products such as PV enabled roofing and window materials are projected to be the largest market opportunity measuring $800 million ($US) in 2011 with large project and consumer electronic products the second and third largest market opportunities.
• On the materials front, amorphous silicon, the best established of the various thin-film PV materials, will represent an $800 million ($US) opportunity followed by organic and hybrid organic/inorganic materials and then CIS/CIGS.
• Thin film/organic PV is also generating buzz in the industry and several companies have received large VC rounds. Major multinationals are also supporting this technology as Honda has announced it will soon start full-scale production of thin film PV and Shell has just sold off its conventional PV business to focus on thin film. On the other hand, NanoMarkets points out that thin film and organic PV is also a technology space that has received its fair share of hype and controversy with competing claims by different manufacturers on where and how it can be applied and disputes over conversion efficiencies and costs per watt.

The Georgia Tech Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE) and Solvay announced a $3 million deal for OLED research today.

COPE has already developed a unique material platform for OLEDs that may be deposited over large areas by ink-jet printing and patterned using standard photolithography. Tech researchers have found that exposing the material to ultraviolet light leads to hardened materials that are insoluble and maintain stability under high temperatures. This allows researchers to build a multi-layered solid-state device from liquid materials. […]

COPE, through the research group of Jean-Luc Bredas, already conducts research activities with the University of Mons-Hainaut in Belgium. Georgia Tech has two international campuses, Georgia Tech Lorraine in Metz, France, and Georgia Tech Singapore. […]

In addition to Marder and Bredas, two other principals at COPE are Bernard Kippelen, associate director of COPE and professor in Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Marcus Weck, associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

The Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM) has been awarded a $1.7M R&D contract by the U.S. Display Consortium (USDC)

to develop the process technology and know-how to produce amorphous silicon thin film transistors (a-Si TFTs) on a clear, high temperature-capable polymer foil substrate.

[…] organic substrates cannot withstand typical TFT semiconductor on glass processing temperatures of >300°C. The Princeton program is based on a new type of clear, flexible polymer substrate that is capable of use at these “glass-like” processing temperatures.

The two-year program has several important milestones. For example, by the end of Year 1, a best effort will be made to demonstrate an electrophoretic test array and an OLED test array on the plastic substrate. […]
The principal investigators, Wagner and PRISM director Dr. James Sturm, have been working on experimental substrates for some time and have made a-Si TFTs at 280° C with performance nearly identical to typical TFTs made on glass. Applied Materials’ subsidiary, AKT, will collaborate to investigate the scale up of these materials using industry-standard fabrication tools.

BusinessWeek has a story on electronic ink applications, such as Hitachi’s electronic paper advertisement displays, updated via wireless connection.
They remind us of the fact that modern information technoloy has not led to the once envisioned paper-free office.

But the fact is, paper hasn’t gone away. The spread of the Internet and the rise of the PC have made information ever more accessible, leading not to the death of paper but to its proliferation. In 2004, worldwide paper production was roughly 400 million tons, compared with about 300 million in 1995, according to Japan Pulp & Paper statistics.

It remains to be seen whether or how soon e-paper will replace real paper. Applications such as rewritable shop price tags and billboards, where e-paper can provide added functionality, compared with traditional paper,

could help the market for e-paper surge to nearly $900 million by 2011, from $2 million last year, according to Tokyo-based market watcher Techno System Research.

The article goes on to mention colour electronic paper and printable OLEDs.
It’s cleary a business article, so we can forgive them for confusing some of the technical details:

Despite their differences, LCDs and OLEDs share two important traits: They can quickly change what they display and don’t need a backlight, so the only time they use power is when text or images change.

Of course LCDs and OLEDs are fast compared to most e-paper types, but, unlike bistable e-paper, constantly require power. Also, most LCDs do need a backlight (or frontlight), at least for low-light situations.

Details here, including a bit more info on Konarka:

Founded in 2001, Konarka has steadily expanded its presence. Previous funding in Konarka—$60 million since 2001—has allowed the company to make considerable advances in its photovoltaic technology, while continuing to strengthen its intellectual property (IP) position. In 2004, Konarka acquired Siemens AG’s organic photovoltaic research activities, as well as its renowned scientific team. The Company also expanded and strengthened its European presence with the opening of a new center of operations, including research labs in Germany, and through a scale-up partnership with LEONARD KURZ GmbH & CO. KG. KURZ is a recognized leader in printing technology, with nine plant locations in Europe, the U.S. and the Pacific.

NE Asia Online on the 2006 OLED Technology Report by DisplaySearch

Revenues of OLED industry is expected to total over US$500M in 2005, up 18% Y/Y, according to the 2006 OLED Technology Report from DisplaySearch. OLED display makers are in transition from passive matrix to active matrix centricity, not unlike LCDs in the early to mid 1990s. The difference is that AMOLED display makers are expected to ride the benefits of the existing TFT infrastructure created for LCDs.

Table 1 OLED Display Revenue by Application (US$ million)

Table 2 Organic Material Forecast (US$) vs Display Production

According to IDTechEx projections,

organic electronics will be a $30 billion business by 2015 mainly due to logic/memory, displays and lighting. The report […] indicates that this could rise to $250 billion by 2025, with major sales from logic/memory; OLED displays for electronic products; OLED billboard and signage; non-emissive organic displays; as well as lighting, batteries and photovoltaics. […]

“Progress is exponential, not linear, and, although the organic electronics business may be $4.75 billion in 2010, with OLED displays making nearly all the running, by 2015, startling progress on a broad front will be visible and by 2025, the business will rival silicon chips in size - yet, oddly, not impacting silicon chip sales much at all.”

IDTechEx believe that there are few other technologies that will have such an impact on industry in the next twenty years. Organic electronics in the form of smart packaging, electronic billboards, posters, signage and electronic books will impact the conventional printing and publishing industry. Organic lighting will severely dent sales of both incandescent and fluorescent lighting.

Percentage of organic electronic market by value 2020 [Source: IDTechEx]