Fine Tech Japan 2012, the world’s largest FPD trade show, was held at Tokyo Big Sight April 10-13, 2012. The trade show ran concurrent with four related fairs and expos and attracted more than 1,000 companies and organizations that showcased new technologies and products. The convention center was packed with visitors; many were engineers, researchers, and marketing professionals. The engineers were hoping to discover the latest technology to improve current product portfolios and concepts, researchers noted the latest trends for the industry, and marketing groups were evaluating any new business opportunities. It was standing-room-only during the technical sessions

Printable electronics remains a favorite to become the next-generation technology and was definitely the most talked about product during the show. Professors from a few universities were speculating about the possibility of printable transistors and printable integrated circuits, but in my opinion, this type of technology will remain a fantasy and will not be practical in the next five or 10 years due to technical and economical reasons. One issue is the lack of innovative applications--most of the ideas are earmarked to replace current technologies that use printable electronics. If the goal is to replace the entire process using printable electronics, several hurdles must be overcome to achieve this objective. Furthermore, if these hurdles are manageable, it may be cost prohibitive to proceed.

With this in mind, several manufacturers focused on more practical products to present at the show. I stopped at a booth manned by an equipment supplier that featured ink jet printers. The sales pitch did not focus on resolution or throughput of the printers because these are its weak points. The representative emphasized the printer’s flexibility for small volume production and demonstrated a small roll-to-roll manufacturing system using an ink jet printer. High-temperature baking is not needed and the representative explained that the system was available for specific silver inks with low resolution and low conductivity. A user cannot choose the substrate or conductor materials and they cannot determine the cover coat usage to avoid the migration issue. The equipment representative asked me whether there are any opportunities for the system under its limited conditions. I replied, "No."

I visited two booths that featured screen printers. The sales representatives provided examples of products produced using their printing process. These examples included photovoltaic cells and touch-panel screens. Their use of screen printers was not used throughout the entire manufacturing process, but rather key parts to produce these electronic devices. They were able to produce fine silver lines that measured 50 microns of line and space. Both reps were happy to report that they have been very busy thanks to the orders from smartphones, tablet PCs, e-books, solar cell power stations, and more.

There were many ink suppliers at the show, along with a few nanomaterial suppliers. The suppliers for nanomaterials could not claim their products perform better, but they do know the advantages and disadvantages of their products. I found many varieties of inks other than conductors,and more choices for cover and insulation layers. also found several specialties such as transparent, high- and low-dielectric constant, very flexible and more. One ink supplier introduced a set of ink materials for disposable primary batteries.

There were more examples of actual applications using printable electronics. One screen mask supplier brought along examples of tiny sensors and flexible, color EL sheets produced in volume production. One of them uses fine silver lines of 18 microns and spaces. The engineer that was working in this booth claimed that their screen-printing process is capable of producing patterns finer than 10 microns line and space if all the conditions are optimized.

I spoke with many manufacturing reps that did not reserve booths, but were mingling within the crowd. Most are currently producing a significant amount of volume using printable electronics. My best guess is this segment is already consuming over 100 tons of printable materials every month.