Printed Electronics - On Track to a Major Industry

By Dr Peter Harrop
IDTechEx

Nowadays, the term printed electronics is taken to include thin film electronics that will become printable. Most of the potential for printed electronics lies in what Toppan Forms calls Smart Media Products (SMP) which will be intelligent and mass producible yet often customisable as well. They will usually be used at the human interface or connected to networks and embedded ubiquitously into the environment. All this means that printed electronics will largely create new markets, such as tape around pipelines to detect leaks and impending leaks and signal that there is a problem. After all, leaks still occur in the Trans Alaska pipeline, in refineries and in utility pipes underground.