East Asia

In a report published by IDTechEx this week, titled "Printed, Organic & Flexible Electronics Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2009-2029," the opportunity for all of printed and potentially printed electronics is assessed.  IDTechEx finds that the market for printed and potentially printed electronics, including organics, inorganics and composites, will rise from $1.92 billion in 2009 to $57.16 billion in 2019.

IDTechEx expect the spend on printed and thin film electronics beyond conventional silicon to be $1.58 Billion this year. The majority of this is for OLED display panels ($0.69 Billion) which is the value of the panel and not the final device. Virtually all of this is not printed and on glass. Second largest by value is photovoltaics (PV) beyond conventional crystalline and amorphous silicon, accounting for $0.4 Billion. This is not organic PV however, which is still some time away from commercialization, but inorganic technologies such as CIGS and CdTe devices. For example, First Solar has an order book exceeding $2 Billion

Overall, Europe may be losing the race for the huge new business of printed electronics and the rejuvenation of society that it will bring. This is despite having far more academic institutions than East Asia working on the subject, the number being somewhat ahead of North America as well. That is a possible conclusion from the new IDTechEx report Organic and Printed Electronics in Europe which analyses and compares the activities of 248 European organizations in the sector. Consider the patents scene. Analyst Cintelliq has issued a report “Inventors 2003-2005” - an analysis of inventors of organic semiconductor patents. See www.cintelliq.com for further details.

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