Oct 13 2009
NanoMarkets, a leading industry analyst firm based here, has just released its newest report, "Opportunities for Printed Silicon: 2009 to 2016."
The report continues NanoMarkets' extensive industry coverage of the printed electronics markets and provides eight-year forecasts of printed silicon materials and devices used for photovoltaics, display backplanes, and RFID tags, as well as other emerging applications. According to NanoMarkets' analysts, revenues from printed silicon products will reach around $1.8 billion in 2016.
This report is a companion to NanoMarkets' recent report, "Opportunities for Nanosilicon: 2009 to 2016." Further details about the report are available at www.nanomarkets.net. Executive summaries are available to members of the press. The reports are available individually or as a set.
Key findings:
- The biggest opportunity will come from photovoltaics as printed silicon offers the best of all worlds; good environmental stability without the need for complex encapsulation, potentially very high performance, and lowered costs through the use of high-throughput printing. Printed nanosilicon PV panels will generate well over $1 billion in revenue by 2016.
- Printed silicon may also be the solution to the industry's growing impatience with organic TFTs (OTFTs). OTFTs have been slow to improve in terms of performance, cost and durability. By contrast, printed silicon offers a future in which TFTs arrays can be fabricated at low cost with the performance of the conventionally built TFTs. Device-level revenues generated by printed silicon TFTs for display backplanes alone are likely to reach more than $300 million by 2016.
- NanoMarkets believes that printed silicon will create major opportunities for ink makers. For now, the printed silicon firms closest to commercialization appear to be making their own inks. But once the leading printed silicon companies have demonstrated success, they will focus on the evolution and marketing of devices and that will create a niche opportunity for ink makers to produce high-value silicon inks in quantity.