Printing Technology II: Flexible Polymer Electronics
The development of flexible electronics has been an active and highly interesting sector over the past decade but commercial products are still in the future as technical challenges need to be overcome. The development of useful conductive polymers in the 1990s provided the springboard for this technology development. The concept handset device known as Morph from Nokia could be an important milestone heralding commercial flexible electronics of the next decade. The goal of being able to mass-produce electronics via roll-to-roll printing is exciting and potentially revolutionary. There are significant recent developments with the first dedicated “plastic electronics” factory opening in the fall of 2008. There are also interesting developments in using silicon inks and integrating conventional silicon ICs onto flexible substrates. This newsletter highlights new device developments in flexible electronics as well as important new developments in the underlying materials and processes.
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