-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueBox Build
One trend is to add box build and final assembly to your product offering. In this issue, we explore the opportunities and risks of adding system assembly to your service portfolio.
IPC APEX EXPO 2024 Pre-show
This month’s issue devotes its pages to a comprehensive preview of the IPC APEX EXPO 2024 event. Whether your role is technical or business, if you're new-to-the-industry or seasoned veteran, you'll find value throughout this program.
Boost Your Sales
Every part of your business can be evaluated as a process, including your sales funnel. Optimizing your selling process requires a coordinated effort between marketing and sales. In this issue, industry experts in marketing and sales offer their best advice on how to boost your sales efforts.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
Industry Prospects:
Will Printed Electronics Be Sustainable?
December 31, 1969 |
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
In many ways the end product is only as good as the equipment used to produce it, and market penetration is only as good as the manufacturing infrastructure that supports it. With printed electronics novel technologies such as flexible displays, paper-based RFID tags, sensor networks, and thin-film integrated circuit boards and components success will be measured in the precision and throughput achieved by printing equipment. Printed electronics are on the cusp of emerging from conceptual R&D into viable products, but NanoMarkets analysts report that manufacturing capacity at present is negligible, and the standby screen printer will lose market share to high-volume printing methods over the next five years.
Between 2007 and 2013, about 15,000 printers will ship to factories ramping printed electronic assemblies, NanoMarkets forecasts. Capital equipment suppliers targeting this niche will be challenged to output high-volume/low-cost printing systems using gravure, flexography, or offset methods; small R&D, laboratory, or educational printers, most likely ink jet; and screen printers for the thick-film printed electronics that dominate the initial market. "Ink-jet printers offer better results for printing fine circuitry, but the question of throughput is measurable," noted Lawrence Gasman, principal analyst, NanoMarkets. In terms of printing equipment companies operating in SMT and PCB assembly markets, growth in printed electronics could expose a new market opportunity, he added, and these companies possess some edge over graphics printing companies due to familiarity with the goals and challenges of building electronics.
Peripheral equipment test-and-measurement systems, design software, etc. does not exist as yet for the printed electronics industry, Gasman said, because the market is not yet lucrative enough for companies to invest in new product lines to target it. "In printed electronics R&D, we use a lot of microdispensing systems, screen printers, spray coaters originally designed to dispense flux, and conformal coating technologies, all pulled from the SMT line," said Jie Zhang, Motorola printed electronics unit and co-chair of iNemi's roadmap for printed electronics. New applications and novel materials lead to spraying semiconductor "inks," screen-printing organics onto flexible substrates, and laying barrier layers with the same conformal coating process used for solder mask. With graphics-based printing systems, control of dot size and density is helpful; however, technicians must ensure that electronics are functional, without opens for example, and that is assisted with an SMT background. "It's a true merging of two disciplines," explained Daniel Gamota, also with Motorola's group and chair at iNemi. Test-and-inspection equipment can be more difficult to transition. Checking ink density can establish whether or not a printed assembly is functional. In some cases, with certain materials, optical inspection can be misleading. "We're working toward implementing electrical characterization functions on the printer itself," Zhang noted, adding that in-line inspection is not yet realized.
By 2013, NanoMarkets sees 75% of printed electronics manufacturing lines using high-volume thin-film methods, with screen printers occupying 18% market share. More than 70% of systems used for R&D and prototyping will be ink-jet printers. Manufacturing capacity globally is expected to hit 400 million sq.m., producing product for a $40 billion market. Yields of printed electronics are approaching commercially viable levels, Gasman noted, and with printing equipment costs significantly below traditional lithography, etch, and other manufacturing systems for comparable products, manufacturing and peripheral tooling sets could spring up rapidly.
Printing electronics blurs distinctions between component and PCB, as traces, shielding, dielectrics, conductors, and semiconductors can, in theory, all be deposited onto substrates ranging from flexible plastics to paper to clothing fibers. Printed electronics may integrate with traditional electronics assembly techniques, increasing market penetration. Amir Mashkoori, chairman and CEO of Kovio and keynote speaker at Printed Electronics USA 2007, is developing printed silicon electronics and thin-film technologies that enable integration with existing and emerging assembly techniques. Kovio's manufacturing techniques combine printing processes borrowed from graphics fields with silicon-based semiconductor capabilities. Electronics OEMs are considering printed electronics as additional revenue streams as well, whether as separate or integrate products. While the display industry is the front-runner for integrating printed electronics, computing and electronics products will use printing to enhance mobility and make electronics more pervasive, such as in ambient sensing networks for homes, Gasman explained.
Organic, inorganic, and composite materials construct various forms of printed electronics. Organic printed electronics will create a $300 billion industry in 2027, but is just over $1 billion in 2007, said Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx. The total market encompassing the well-known organics, inorganics, and composites could reach $48.18 billion in ten years, if manufacturing techniques using conductive inks to produce PCBs and flex connectors, or organics and composites to print sensors and organic LEDs (OLEDs), meet the potential that has been appraised at the R&D level. Inorganics could lead to higher-performance conductors and printed batteries, quantum-dot devices, and highly mobile transistors, said Peter Harrop, Ph.D., analyst, IDTechEx. While organics, particularly OLEDs, are leading the printed manufacturing industry, inorganics are poised to make the jump from thin-film traditional manufacturing systems to truly printed, truly flexible assemblies. Commercial potential and technical progress are high, IDTechEx reports, and companies producing flexible displays with up to eight printed inorganic layers and printed photovoltaics based on copper, indium, and gallium diselenide will lead inorganics in attracting market share, if printing techniques advance to keep up with organics. Composites also garner attention, as inorganic materials are added to printable organics in nanoparticles.
Limitations abound for market saturation, and printed electronics likely will remain a niche of electronics assembly for several years. The technology has existed since the 1970s, Gasman said, and has been growing on an exponential curve. The present atmosphere is encouraging significant and fast growth, with venture capital investments, stabilized inks, government incentives, and cost pressures. However, testing and development procedures still can take prohibitive amounts of time and expertise, IDTechEx reports. Manufacturing technique, substrate, and deposited materials are crucial, and the trend is toward collaboration. "The infrastructure is not good yet," observed Krishna Kalyanasundaram, Motorola, also co-chair at iNemi. The beginnings of a value chain are developing. Materials, chemical, printing, plastics, and related companies can cooperate to bring product to market faster, though the logistics may be exceedingly difficult. Roadmaps, such as iNemi's, ITRS', and others from consortia like U.S. Display Consortium (USDC), help bridge gaps between suppliers, printing equipment builders, and materials companies. Common terminology, such as "inks" appearing in the product portfolios of electronics materials suppliers, is a welcome start, said Kalyanasundaram. The industry will be tested to bring its considerable quantity of intellectual property (IP) into end markets efficiently and with profit, particularly in consumer applications, where time-to-market is expected to be swift and product design flexible.
Other challenges facing printed electronics rest in raw materials. Current-generation printed electronic products and R&D incorporate large amounts of rare materials, for both organic and inorganic inks, according to Das. Without improvement, this situation could destabilize within 15 years. Whether or not printed electronics are environmentally friendly is another issue, Gasman asserts. While printing electronics reduces chemical waste as compared to creating PCBs, components, and assembling them, "the disposable nature of some printed electronics, as well as the silver nanopowders in many printed inks for electronics, complicate the environmental effect of this industry."
Success in printing could revitalize mature manufacturing regions, in particular Japan, the U.S., and Europe. Government projects, interest in lower-power/energy-efficient products, regulations on toxic substances in manufacturing and end products, and concentrations of university and laboratory research in these regions fuel development, and early manufacturing facilities are co-locating with IP hotspots. "Europe, Asia, and to an extent the U.S., are leading in printed electronics; Europe especially," noted Gamota. Plastic Logic, a Cambridge, U.K.-based company located its manufacturing facility for e-readers, devices with flexible displays that mimic a newspaper or book page, in Germany. Japanese universities are leading the R&D movement, and Tokyo-based manufacturer Konica Minolta Holdings will develop and ship OLEDs for General Electric within three years, IEEE's Spectrum NA reports. Research on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for printed and transparent electronics is underway in Japan and the U.S., NanoMarkets reports. In 2007, 56% of market spending is coming from East Asia, the analyst company states, and end markets will be strongest in Europe and North America. Product launches with modest roll-out hitting receptive markets have been successful, Gamota said. IDTechEx concurs that the majority of development and fledgling production is occurring in the U.S., Europe, and Japan and East Asia. One could expect, however, to find manufacturing migrating to lower-cost regions as the technology matures, R&D lessens, and high-volume manufacturing equipment brings products to commercial markets.
For more on printed electronics, standards, and related tradeshows, see SMT's coverage of the iNEMI roadmapIDTechEx's WebsiteIEEE's Spectrum NA July issue1620-2004 IEEE Standard Test Methods for Characterization of Organic Transistors and Materials1620.1-2006 Standard for Test Methods for the Characterization of Organic Transistor-Based Ring Oscillatorsand NanoMarkets' Website.