IDTechEx

Advances in technologies for packaging printing, including RFID, Printed Electronics award winners and brand protection.

Electronic packaging, or e-packaging, is a term turning up more and more frequently in the package-printing and converting industries. Although still in its early days, e-packaging represents a trend that promises to deliver a host of innovations in the months and years ahead. So what's it all about, and how will the trend affect companies engaged in developing and deploying packaging and packaging systems?

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—IDTechEx has published “Brand Enhancement by Electronics in Packaging 2010-2020 The impending surge in e-packaging.” It concerns the market for electronic smart packaging devices, known as “e-packaging.” According to the report, global demand for these devices will grow rapidly from $0.09 billion in 2010 to $7.7 billion in 2020.

IDTechEx announced a new report “RFID Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2009-2019”, which addresses the global RFID situation. Areas of growth, undersupply and oversupply, and trends are given based on extensive new primary research.

The bottom line is that funding for start-ups and small companies involved in printed and potentially printed electronics and electrics continues to be available from many sources and progress is unabated.

Even where a thinner battery is needed and footprint is not a constraint, the choice is usually coin cells not the laminar batteries made by an increasing number of businesses. Because their products can cost ten times as much as coin cells, the laminar batteries are usually having success only where the need for thinness and flexibility is extreme. [...] several smart skin patches are about to be announced that incorporate printed batteries and such things as electronic swing tags for apparel retailing are near to significant orders thanks to the tremendous payback from adjusting prices remotely. [...] they should take high volume orders even at a loss so they can get economy of scale and get down the experience curve. [...] they must be standardised.

by Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman, IDTechEx Electronic circuits that are wholly or substantially printed are a commercial success today. Companies such as T-ink, E Ink, Toppan Forms, Soligie, GSI, Electroluminate, Schreiner, Delphi, Avery Dennison, and Power Paper are selling printed electronic products to many famous brands such as Timberland, Caterpillar, Sears Craftsman, Hallmark, Toys R Us, John Dickinson, Kent, McDonald’s, Estee Lauder, Ford, Toyota, GM, Playtex, Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola, Duracell, NTT DoCoMo, and Sony. Brand enhancement is a popular theme, from the tester on a battery to the animated display on a recent edition of Esquire magazine and the heated outdoor apparel

Printed electronics is the new hot topic in Silicon Valley—it enables the printing of circuits, displays, sensors, batteries, and solar cells which have many new attributes not seen before in conventional electronics, attributes such as electronics that are flexible, laminar, stretchable, lightweight, cheaper or which can be made in very large areas. The newspaper that has a moving display; skin patches which automate delivery of drugs; the bill board poster that is a digital display; the package that senses when you take your medication; plastic solar cells. These are all products available today thanks to printed electronics. The world’s biggest chemical, printing, electronics, and

RFID and printed electronics—these two emerging technologies represent a tremendous amount of potential growth for package printers and label converters across the globe. Neither technology has hit the mainstream yet, so usage is not widespread. However, package and label printers should be watching each. Why? If, as Peter Harrop, chairman, IDTechEx predicts, we are only 10 years away from RFID being as ubiquitous as bar codes (only printed on labels), then label printers will have to integrate RFID tags into their workflows. And, once RFID is printed, watch out! The global market In “Vibrant RFID -Markets,” a publication issued by IDTechEx, Harrop states that

PITTSBURGH, Pa. and DENVER, Colo.—Plextronics, Inc. announced the introduction of its ink systems for organic solar cell fabrication at the IDTechEx PV Beyond Conventional Silicon Conference in Denver, Colorado. Developed around its record-setting photovoltaic technology, the company is releasing two versions of its Plexcore® PV ink system for use in research applications. The company is already scheduled to fulfill multiple orders for Plexcore® PV ink by the end of June. Troy Hammond, Plextronics’ vice president of products and a presenter at the conference, said that this is the first time the company has offered its organic photovoltaic (PV) product for sale. “We began our