The market for printed and potentially printed electronics, including organics, inorganics and composites, will rise from $1.18bn in 2007 to $48.18bn in 2017.

The majority of the market in 2007 is for electronics in the following three more conventional categories:

• conductive inks (for membrane keyboards, PCBs, flex connectors)
• sensors (e.g. disposable glucose sensors for those with diabetes)
• organic light emitting displays (OLEDs) which are mostly on glass substrates and not printed as yet.

These three products will be rapidly overtaken in terms of market value as hundreds of companies develop, for example, OLEDs on flexible substrates which are printed, thin film transistor circuits (TFTCs), photovoltaics, and many other components.

IDTechEx finds that 31.6% of the electronics discussed are fully or partially printed in 2007. This rises substantially over the next ten years to 90.3% by 2017. The following chart shows the value by component in 2027.

Market by territory

If we look at the market size by territory, IDTechEx find that most work is taking place in Europe, the US and Japan. In many respects Europe is in the lead. For instance, the first printed electronics factories are appearing there. However, by spend, we see that in 2007 56% of the market spend is in East Asia.

This is because the biggest component – OLED display modules – are made there and bought by companies making devices, such as MP3 players. However, it disguises the fact that many of the devices are then sold to North America and Europe.

Industries collaborating as never before

Key elements of device production are the manufacturing technique, substrate and material deposited. Changing one of these affects the other two. As all three are in constant development, the testing and development procedures can be lengthy. It also requires different sorts of expertise, and we note that few companies are risking the expense to do it all themselves, but rather close alliances have emerged between material, chemical, printing, plastics, paper and electronics companies who are co-developing certain aspects. These industries are learning to talk to each other, as shown below.

Sectors for printed and thin film electronics

The end point for most applications is for the creation of disposable devices on low-cost flexible substrates, the most difficult combination to achieve while retaining yield, lifetime and manufacturing ease, but opening up the largest markets.

Fluid Value Chain

Thanks to the many potential entry points, development needs and application opportunities, company positioning is fluid and will continue to be so.

Some of the world’s largest companies have little application focus but are committed to R&D across a wide breadth of challenges aiming to create a vast intellectual property (IP) portfolio.

Others, particularly VC funded companies, are application driven with targets to bring product to market. Of course to some extent all are doing both. Whereas the industry was initially created by material development – its success over the next ten years lies more now on the ability to improve the manufacturing of devices to create high-yield, reliable, low-cost devices.

Commercial viability

Many commercial questions have yet to be answered. While people talk of almost free fully-printed RFID tags, the reality is that material companies may price their materials as pharmaceuticals do in order to recoup their R&D investment, making the tag price less favourable compared to that of ultra-small silicon chips, which meet existing standards and are more capable and reliable (at least initially).

On the other hand, having flexible displays such as e-book readers may be a reason to premium price products, but only if the display quality is good enough.
 

The vast amount of IP that is being generated may also pose an issue for the industry. IDTechEx has heard of one display manufacturer not adopting OLEDs because it could not be sure that it had identified all the correct IP holders for royalties.

Opportunities

We have published a report which assesses the many gaps and opportunities for those involved or intending to get involved in this sector. For example, if radical improvements do not occur, both organic and inorganic printed electronics will use copious amounts of rare materials, many of which are calculated to run out within 15 years, if we consider economically viable options from crustal reserves.