Recently, the US market research company NanoMarkets released a survey report on the development trend and application prospects of printed electronics technology. The concept of printed electronics, when it was first introduced, refers to thick-filmelectronics, a paste made by uniformly dispersing various powders in an organic solvent, and is widely used as an electrical conductor for various electronic components. , insulators and dielectrics.

About 10 years ago, people predicted that using printed principles to print complex circuits could make printed electronics a huge industry. In the past 10 years, printed electronics has experienced a process of expecting expansion, bursting, and steadily progressing. The current situation is that today's printed electronics is not an independent and huge industry, but a collection of specific and different applications. These include smart packaging, smart cards, interactive print media, disposable electronics, mobile displays, lighting and solar panels. Here are a few directions that I think are interesting and have potential applications.

• Display and battery printing electronics can be covered in the field of current profitability, and mature markets are displays and batteries. NanoMarkets' market research report predicts that these two industries will generate $1.8 billion in revenue by 2017. Ebay and MasterCard have deployed tens of thousands of smart cards powered by printed batteries. As far as displays are concerned, most of the world's e-book screens are currently produced using processes similar to printed electronics.

• SmartPackaging

Smart packaging is an area where growth in printed electronics applications is expected to increase rapidly in the coming years. Its big demand comes from two aspects. The first is that smart labels will greatly help the supply chain management of the logistics industry. The "printing" on the label here is mainly the sensors, which can be connected to the Internet, input the item information into the database, and be used by the logistics company to manage the inventory. Of course, the printed sensors can be large or small, and some foreign companies can even produce films up to one kilometer in length and only five millimeters in thickness. Wrap it in a building such as a bridge to measure the pressure of the building in real time.

Another area where demand for smart packaging is strong is the monitoring of hygiene in food and medicine. The prior art has been able to "print" a bacterial density Detector (including the basic coefficients of temperature and humidity, which are naturally also within the measurement range), so that food and drug safety can be greatly improved. As the aging population in Europe and Japan continues to increase, pharmaceutical smart packaging is a long-standing and growing opportunity.

• Interactive print media (interactive printedmedia)

This is a cool one in the emerging applications of printed electronics. The significance of interactive print media is to provide augmented reality. In short, traditional paper media such as newspapers and magazines can only provide a two-dimensional, flat experience. The identification of print media and the Internet mobile experience of watching videos, shopping, social, etc. through smartphones and images as access points can be combined.

To find out what it means to be an interactive print media, check out this video attached to the article. This is the result of the application of Layar, a company from the Netherlands. Online video shopping by taking photos and recognition with a smartphone to stimulate video and audio, downloading an e-book by introducing a photo to a book on a magazine, taking photos of a shopping guide, etc...

It seems that the potential uses of printed electronics are numerous and a bit confusing. However, we still have to pay attention, as with all technologies, there will be a significant long tail effect in the application. That is, most of the business will still come from technologies that are already mature. In other words, it is likely that several major applications will drive most of the demand, and then many, many interesting and interesting applications will occupy a small portion of the market.

After all, print electronics has brought about several trends in the past, and it has also experienced high expectations – expectations are shattered – and gradually begin to produce steadily. Just like everyone is talking about 3D printing now, although these technologies seem so "cool", it seems to be omnipotent, but how much technology can be practical after coming to market, similar to interactive media augmented reality products. There are no real needs, and these are still far from known. maybe. After discovering that it is really useful, there are still a few existing mature markets. So this time, both VC and entrepreneurs should be more cautious.

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