The Digital Print CIC hosted a seminar at the University on Tuesday 30th June for 80 industrialists. intcic.com/www.digitalprintcic.com/images/stories/pdf/novalia.pdf<a href="http://www.digitalp

The theme was on printed electronics and the launch of an £800,000 competitive grant competition to industry, by the Northern Way organisation.

Printed electronics is an emerging set of technologies that enable electronic devices to be made using conventional printing techniques with electronic “inks” being coated onto flexible substrates such as paper and plastic. It potentially offers relatively simple and low cost ways to make electronic devices such as displays, RFID (radio frequency identification) tags, lighting and photovoltaic cells. It needs to be seen as complementary to conventional silicon electronics, not as an alternative. During the past two years, the performance of printed electronic devices has improved so that its performance is now approaching that of amorphous silicon devices. The traditional silicon and LCD based technologies are far too expensive for some high volume applications, both in terms of the per-unit cost, the cost of developing new circuits and also the capital cost of manufacturing facilities.

The potential of this market has been already been well recognised in independent reports by UKTI, DBERR, UK Displays and Lighting KTN, the Council for Science and Technology⁽¹⁾ and TSB, all of whom support further investment in this area.

A number of market studies suggest that the potential size of the printed electronics global market ranges from $1.2Bn in 2007 to over $4Bn by 2017.  Organisations such as IDTechEx⁽²⁾ have even estimated that the market could be worth as much as $330Bn by 2027.  Even though there is wide variation in the size of the market predictions, what the data does suggest is that printed electronics will be a major industry with applications in wide ranging sectors, most notably Displays and Lighting; Printed Photovoltaics; RFID and Intelligent Packaging, Sensors, etc. The Printed Electronics market is not without risk, but success will lead to significant rewards. 

The three Regional Development Agencies operating in the North of England (collectively known as the Northern Way) are aiming to capitalise on the strong technological capability present in the region by assisting businesses in understanding and capitalising upon this opportunity. The aim is for the North to be a world leader in this market and we are working with businesses to develop the technology, novel applications and new products. This competition was part of that programme. Its fundamental objective is

To stimulate potential users of printed electronics to explore near-to-market applications that could emerge from printed electronics technology

Although to-date printed electronics has been strongly technology driven, the focus of this competition is to look at ways that printed electronics could be applied to develop new products and the potential impact in end markets. The scope of the competition is broad; applicants are positively encouraged to be creative in devising their applications and uses for printed electronics.

The seminar was a great success and the Digital Print CIC is now actively collaborating with companies, regionally and nationally  in assisting them with their grant project bids. If successful, the result will be project work and associated revenue coming into the University to facilitate the development of the identified  applications.

 

Download the presentations here:

Competition funding and next steps - Mike Dunne & Bela Green