Electro-ramblings

So far this year we've seen two plastic semiconductor firms decide on their route to manufacturing.

What's bizarre is the choice of location for those manufacturing plants. The UK firm - Plastic Logic - has chosen to go to Germany, while the Dutch - Polymer Vision - are coming to the UK.

In the current socio-economic climate of "British is best", why did Plastic Logic feel the need to go to Dresden?

According to Steve Bush at EW (Philips plastic display spin-off uses UK fab) a failure of the DTI is to blame.

Dutch flexible display firm Polymer Vision has chosen the UK for its first manufacturing fab, aiming to be in production this year. This constrasts with the recent decision of Cambridge-based flexible display firm Plastic Logic to choose Dresden rather than a site in the UK for its $100m production facility which uses similar technologies. DTI funding failure loses UK Plastic Logic fab

Bushy's story suggests that a UK facility would have the capacity to cope with Plastic Logic's manufacturing requirements.

According to Polymer Vision chief operating officer, Guido Aelbers, Southampton-based manufacturer Innos has the capability of scaling up the technology to a level that can be used to ship volumes to customers.