drupa Innovation Park 2012 Highlights: Printed Electronics And Print Automation

The logistics industry in particular benefits greatly from the use of RFID chips, which store and pass on information via contactless reading devices to a central system, thereby helping to monitor the commodity chain and prevent product piracy. The enormous potential offered by printed electronics will become especially evident when their use becomes economically viable and practical, not just on the outer packaging but also on the individual products themselves – due to their ability to reduce costs and simplify integration. In the field of medicine, billions of these printed sensors are already being used. Electronic books with organic electronic controls that will make flexible displays possible in the future are another fast-growing field of application. In the medium and long term, strong demand is also predicted for intelligent packaging that combines features such as sensors, battery, display, logic and RFID technology.