Screening process for plastic electronics

Sara Ver-Bruggen - 12 Sep 2011

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The markets for displays are among the best illustrations of the potential of the plastic electronics. Products based on OLED and e-paper displays have permeated the consumer market in a way that few other devices - such as organic solar cells, OLED lighting or wearable electronics - have done so far.

Yet the success of OLED and e-paper displays in consumer electronics has been tempered by market forces. Some display manufacturers have reverted back to LCD screens due to supply problems.

Tablets

For e-paper, the arrival of the e-reader presented an exciting new category of portable electronic device to consumers; but attention was quickly diverted to the iPad and the consequent launch of various competing tablet computers.

Thanks to the e-reading functionality included in many tablets, any premium e-reader would always be compared to a tablet, and would often suffer from such comparison due to the relative lack of functionality, interactivity and attention-grabbing display.

Challenges

In 2007, printed electronics consultancy IDTechEx predicted the organic and printed electronics market would reach over $5 billion (€3.5 billion) by 2011. In April 2011 the company expected the total market to be $2.2 billion this year. This discrepancy between expectation and reality can be extrapolated to 2020 and beyond too, helping to contextualise the tens of billions of dollars that the plastic electronics market is expected to yield in the future.

This makes the changes underway in the displays markets compelling for the plastic electronics industry as a whole. How manufacturers of OLED, e-paper and other display technologies from the plastic electronics industry achieve greater market share will help guide future commercial products like OLED lighting, organic and dye solar cells, smart packaging, and more.

This article appears in full in Volume 4, issue 1 of +Plastic Electronics magazine, a display special. Plugged in: displays provides a detailed review of the markets for next-generation displays; looks at how the OLED supply chain needs to evolve to cope with demand, and investigates the technology behind flexible displays.
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