CAMBRIDGE, MA – The market for printed and potentially printed electronics in 2012 will be $9.4 billion, says IDTechEx. This includes devices not yet printed, but that are moving toward being printed.

Of this market, 30% of the devices studied are made predominately by printing, and 6% are on a non-rigid substrate, says the firm.

Four main markets make up 98% of this figure, including OLED displays, driven by the need to differentiate smartphones. Samsung has led much of the investment, production and use of OLED displays in its smartphones, seeing significant sales over the past 12 months.

$4 billion will be spent on OLED displays in 2012, says the firm.

This year, $290 million will be spent on e-paper material (excluding the value of the TFT backplane). In e-readers, this technology has created a market of several billion dollars. However, the Holy Grail is color, with electrophoretic versions and other technologies (such as electrowetting) being pursued, according to IDTechEx.

$2.3 billion will be spent this year on conductive inks, used predominately for photovoltaic bus bars and other applications such as antennas, flexible connectors, smart packaging, etc. This excludes spending on conductive ink for shielding/static discharge applications and membrane circuits, where the sectors are mature. Almost all of this is flake-based ink, the firm says.

In addition, almost $2.6 billion will be spent on CIG-based photovoltaics in 2012, but almost all of this is non-printed and on glass.

IDTechEx believes the OLED display market will rise to $30 billion in 2022, and of that, 20% will be predominately printed and 17% on a non-rigid substrate.

OLED lighting is expected to become a $1 billion market by 2019. OLED lighting panels need to scale up in size to reduce cost and face competition from LED lighting, which is now making inroads into most forms of lighting, in addition to experiencing new technical developments such as printed LED lighting, says the firm.

While metal flake ink is predominately used today for screen printing PV bus bars, interest is growing to use inkjet printable ink to reduce the risk of breaking the ever-thinning silicon PV cell by having a non-contact deposition method, says IDTechEx. Particle-free metallic ink, grapheme-based inks, and copper are now in development or commercial use in a range of applications, including tamper and theft monitoring of retail packages.

Indium Tin Oxide is still more than 95% of the $3.5 billion transparent conductive film market. Indium is subject to supply restriction, and its price has varied by a magnitude in the last ten years. It is required primarily for photovoltaics, displays and touch screen applications. Alternatives to ITO include transparent organic materials, finely printed conductive grid meshes and other ways of patterning metal 'strands'. Some even use copper rather than silver to reduce cost. Others are progressing carbon nanotubes and graphene as a viable alternative, and companies with different technologies are beginning to make some inroads, particularly in touch screen panel applications, says IDTechEx.

Ten years from now, of all the components assessed, IDTechEx finds that the market opportunity will be $63 billion. However, of that, 45% of the components will be predominately printed and 33% on a non-rigid substrate.