While the conventional electronics like computers and smartphones is built around silicon integrating billions of transistors and is manufactured using complex, costly and wasteful processes in multi-billion dollar foundries , The printed and flexible electronics aim to replace this by “organic” semiconductors which are long chains of thousands of repeating molecules (a plastic), made with materials based on carbon. Organic semiconductors can be made to be soluble, and can be turned into an ink. This means it’s possible to print electronic circuits, with the potential to manufacture components as fast as printing newspapers. A printer would do this by applying different inks onto the film. As the inks dried, they would turn into wires, transistors, capacitors, LEDs and all the other things needed to make displays and circuits.
Printed electronics is a set of printing methods used to create electrical devices on various substrates. Electrically functional electronic or optical inks are deposited on various substrates (mainly plastics and fabrics), creating active or passive devices, such as thin film transistors, capacitors, coils and resistors.
Printed electronics is expected to facilitate widespread, very low-cost, low-performance electronics for applications such as flexible displays, smart labels, decorative and animated posters, and active clothing that do not require high performance.
Both organic and inorganic materials are used for printed electronics. Ink materials must be available in liquid form, for solution, dispersion or suspension. They must function as conductors, semiconductors, dielectrics, or insulators. Some tried and tested materials include organic, conductive polymers and nanoparticles made of conductive oxides (TCOs). Common printing equipment suitable for defining patterns on material, such as screen printing, flexography, gravure, offset lithography, and inkjet are used.
Printed and flexible electronics have thus far failed to achieve widespread adoption due to significant unresolved technical challenges. Major gaps exist between expectations and performance of printed electronics in the areas of logic, memory, analog circuitry, power, and light generation.
However Printed electronics have evolved substantially from the early implementations of basic conductive copper or silver traces printed on hard (and later flexible) substrates to which conventional electronic components were attached. Now, thanks to advances in materials science, printed electronics incorporates a wide variety of capabilities, from roll-to-roll memories to printable thin film transistor (TFT) logic and even wireless communications.
The global printed electronics market size was almost $30 billion in 2017 and a growth potential to over $70 billion in ten years. The surging demand for the flexible electronics at low manufacturing costs and the need for eco-friendly technologies is paving the way for increased adoption of the technology. Additionally, the increasing penetration of IoT worldwide is proving to be a prime factor in pulling the printed electronics market over the forecast period. The continuously growing demand for IoT in the telecommunication industry for enhancing the network and optimizing the performance along with operations is expected to propel the application of technology over the forecast period.
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