Finance for Printed Electronics is Not Drying Up

Indeed, Konarka, holding more patents on printed photovoltaics than any other organization on earth, has yet to sell product in volume. Despite this it has recently announced wide web production capability, $45 million in funding from Total and a heavily funded collaborative programme in Germany aimed at improving the lifetime of organic photovoltaics. Konarka recently announced at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA conference that it could obtain a ten year life span but only with barrier layers that are currently prohibitively expensive. Total gains a stake of almost 20% in Konarka and Konarka will receive assistance in developing new products from Total's chemical subsidiaries Atotech, Bostik, Hutchison, Sartomer and Total Petrochemicals. In fact, IDTechEx calculates that there are 50% more organisations working in printed electronics than was the case one year ago and its annual conference and exhibition series in the USA, Europe and Japan on the subject continues to grow strongly in attendance. The US Military, NASA, the US Department of Energy and many other government organizations across the world continue to strongly invest in the industry as well.