Articles
U.S. Display Consortium News
USDC's Premier Conference Proves the Future of Flexible Electronics and Displays Has Arrived
SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 31 PRNewswire —The future of flexible technology has arrived with 2008 marking the year in which the flexible electronics/display industry will be witness to the commercialization of several exciting products in both the commercial and military sectors. This was the consensus of many during last week's 7th annual Flexible Electronics and Displays Conference, which was organized by the U.S. Display Consortium (USDC), a public/private partnership chartered with developing the U.S. display and flexible microelectronics industry. Beyond being a forum for demonstrating the myriad industry successes to date and reviewing the remaining hurdles impacting mainstream adoption, the conference itself reached additional milestones with a record number of attendees — more than 375 people — along with a twofold increase in the number of exhibitors and sponsors.
Dr. A. Michael Andrews, Vice President for Research & Engineering and Chief Technology Officer for L3 Communications Corp., opened the conference with a keynote on the Army's need for revolutionary electronic solutions. Highlights of his address centered on the military's early adoption of flexible electronics and displays for protecting U.S. soldiers, along with how this technology also offers an important dual-use capability for future consumer devices. Andrews noted that while the military invests in the necessary resources to develop and propel this technology to achieve greater performance, many solutions can also be accelerated through collaborative government, industry and academic partnerships.
Commenting on the success of this year's conference, Dr. Michael McCreary, Vice President of E Ink and Chairman of the USDC Governing, noted, "Many of the presentations reaffirmed what we have been talking about since the conference's inception — significant progress in this important and growing sector is now being made possible through close industry collaboration. Indeed, commercialization of flexible electronics is no longer a matter of 'if', but 'when'. This year's conference demonstrated that the 'when', is 'now'. It's quite an exciting time, and USDC commends the significant progress and advancements that have been made by many of the leaders and visionaries at this year's conference."
There were a number of key highlights from the 18 sessions, including: — Prof. Christopher Ober, Cornell University, \"Flexible Electronics for Life-Medicine and Health Care.\" Ober's invited talk focused on how flexible electronics offer tremendous advantages in the health care arena-be it monitoring the status of individuals, insuring general well being, early disease detections and effective treatment for both acute and chronic conditions. In fact, flexible electronics have already begun to provide intelligent, biologically compatible substrates from single-use devices to life-long active implants. — Lawrence Gasman, NanoMarkets, \"Flexible Electronics: Capacity and Investment Forecast.\" Gasman's presentation reviewed some of the manufacturing announcements that occurred in 2007 within the printed and flexible arena. Specifically, his capacity and investment forecast showed that the industry is in a phase of exponential growth, and moreover, there are significant incentives for industries to invest in this technology over the long term. — James Sturm, et al, Princeton, \"Reliable Flexible AMOLED Integration on Clear Plastic.\" Sturm's presentation focused on the development of a high temperature amorphous silicon process to allow such TFTs to be used on flexible displays and possibly even with OLEDs. The list of partners in the talk included UDC, DuPont, the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University, Dow, GE, Xerox, Kodak and PARC, which illustrates the cooperation across the supply chain to meet an end-product need. — There were also a number of other papers announcing several CE devices that are/or will begin manufacturing for delivery to customers in mid-2008. These include Polymer Vision's Readius(R) rollable e-reader and Prime Vision International's Flexi-E e-paper — further proof that this is the year of Flex.
Summing up the conference, Dr. Mark Hartney, USDC's CTO, observed that although the results presented demonstrate the move toward commercialization, it also underscores that the USDC R&D program has a major impact on meeting needs that can enable a commercial application. "Perhaps the most significant result from this conference was seeing how important partnerships across all tiers of the supply chain are in achieving such results. This is the greatest strength of the USDC model, structure and operational processes as we aid in introducing and aligning such partnerships to the benefit of the entire industry."
Hartney added that this will become increasingly important as USDC moves beyond the display space and encompasses the flexible electronics industry. As the industry is still immature, the potential players are less known to one another and the USDC program can speed up the familiarization and alignment process across these varied market segments and identify the common solutions. This holds true particularly around materials and manufacturing technology, which are broadly beneficial, but remain as hurdles impeding mainstream adoption.
The Flexible Electronics and Displays Conference will return to the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort on February 2-5, 2009. Additional details surrounding the conference will be posted on the USDC website at a later date. This year's conference proceedings are available for purchase, please contact Heidi Hoffman at heidi@usdc.org. The purchase price is US$450.
About USDC: USDC is an industry-led public/private partnership providing a common platform for flat panel display and flexible electronics manufacturers and developers, integrators, and the supplier base. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., the consortium's primary mission is to identify and manage R&D projects and share results with USDC member companies. The USDC also provides a communication channel among industry, government and the financial communities; sponsors forums to broaden the impact of technological developments; and educates consumers on the importance of emerging technology. More information about the USDC can be found at http://www.usdc.org and http://www.fpoelectronics.org.
SOURCE USDC
News Network Ads
Submit Your News
Have news? Submit it to our news networks.
