Finding the top printed, organic and flexible electronic companies

Jonathan Melnick - 19 Jan 2012

Partnerships in the plastic electronics market are crucial to help establish products and achieve the best development programs possible, says Jonathan Melnick, analyst at Lux Research.

Bringing products to market in printed, flexible, and organic electronics requires the combined expertise of materials, equipment, and device developers. Successful projects require bringing together companies and technologies to support each other - and in many cases there are multiple companies to bring together for each. Since few, if any, companies have best-in-class capabilities in all of these areas, picking partners with care is an essential component of a successful strategy.

In order to assess companies in printed, flexible, and organic electronics, analysts at Lux Research used a framework to evaluate company performance against competitors on technical value and business execution, where companies that are strong on both skills reach the 'dominant' quadrant. Companies were also assessed on maturity and each company was provided an overall take.

Companies were then evaluated in the areas of displays, organic photovoltaics (OPVs), smart packaging, transparent conductive films (TCFs), and thin-film batteries.

Organic electronics

For displays, companies targeting OLED materials and equipment comprise most of the dominant category. OLED displays have found success thus far primarily in mobile displays, but development of larger displays like televisions is underway. Companies in this area include materials developers like Universal Display and Novaled, in addition to equipment makers like Kateeva. These companies also comprise the majority of the positive takes on the chart due to the strength of OLED technologies in general and the solutions that these companies can provide.

OPV developers mostly score low marks for technical value due to the performance limitations of OPV on cost, lifetime, and efficiency relative to other solar technologies. Not surprisingly, as the fundamental technologies inhibit growth, these companies also score low on business execution as well.

In thin-film batteries, while companies varied on technical value, all scored at or below the midpoint for business execution due to the extremely limited commercial growth of thin-film batteries.

Conductive films

In the area of conductive films and materials, metal nanowire and metal nanoparticle developers scored highly on technical value. However the business execution of these companies varies significantly, given the different states of commercial success. Cambrios, which targets touchscreens with its nanowire films, led a crowded field, earning a ranking in the dominant quadrant of the grid. Within smart packaging, tracking, and asset monitoring, developers scored highly on technical value due to good technology/solution value scores - demonstrating solid technical performance and manageable cost.

No matter which application area, a successful company requires a high technical value score, as little commercial success can be realised without that. Even a company with a high technical value will also need strong business execution to succeed though. A host of internal and external challenges, such as attempting to address nascent markets, to facing competitors with more resources, exist for small- and medium-sized developers, even with valuable technology solutions.

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