Engineering Case
Study – Plastic
Electronics
Engineering
Institute of Physics response to a House
of Commons Innovation, Universities and
Skills Committee Inquiry
A full list of the Institute’s responses and
submissions to consultations can be found at
www.iop.org
14 March 2008
14 March 2008
Clerk to the Committee
Innovation, Universities and Skills
Committee Office
House of Commons
7 Millbank
London SW1P 3JA
Dear Sir/Madam
Engineering Case Study – Plastic Electronics Engineering
The Institute of Physics is a scientific membership organisation devoted to increasing
the understanding and application of physics. It has an extensive worldwide
membership and is a leading communicator of physics with all audiences from
specialists through government to the general public. Its publishing company, IOP
Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination
of physics.
The Institute welcomes the opportunity to respond to the House of Commons
Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee’s Inquiry on plastic electronics
engineering.
The attached annex highlights the key issues of concern to the Institute that have
been linked to the specific questions raised.
If you need any further information on the points raised, please do not hesitate to
contact me.
Yours faithfully
John Brindley
Director, Membership and Business
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Engineering Case Study – Plastic Electronics Engineering
The current and future roles of engineers in the field of plastic electronics
1.1 The field of plastic electronics has its roots in physics and chemistry research
into the fundamental properties of polymers, but in the development of future
applications and devices, engineers and engineering are essential. Currently
engineers are predominantly engaged in translating scientific innovations and R&D
into potential device technology. Further development of plastic electronics
technologies and applications will require engineers working in a range of fields:
Electrical and Electronic Engineering: Plastic electronic devices behave in a
different manner to traditional electronic circuits based on silicon; as such
they require the design and implementation of new structures. For example,
organic light emitting diode (OLED) based displays require different driving
electronics than those used in conventional liquid crystal displays (LCDs).
Organic photovoltaic (OPV) solar cells will require new power electronics to
link them into the national grid.
Optical Engineering: The coupling of light out of OLED based displays, and
coupling light into OPVs, requires new optical designs and modeling to
maximise efficiency.
Chemical Engineering: Solution ‘processable’ plastic electronics require
detailed control and understanding of many factors (e.g. viscosity,
evaporation rate) in the polymer semiconductor formulations. All of these
factors need to be adjusted depending on the production method used for
fabrication. Furthermore there is the need to scale-up the production of
plastic electronic materials from milligrams in the laboratory to kilograms in
factories, bringing together reactor and reaction engineering with process
modeling and control. This requires chemical engineering design of the large
scale production facilities needed to mass produce conjugated polymers,
small molecules and fullerene based materials.
Production Engineering: Production of solution processed plastic electronics
requires a novel range of fabrication facilities. The most fully developed is of
these in the UK is ink-jet printing, but other potential techniques include:
gravure printing, ‘flexo printing’, screen printing, micro-stamping and hotstamping. Challenges in this area are both registration between different
printed layers, as well as resolution (minimum feature size) to maximize
device performance.
Environmental Engineering: Plastic electronics is a developing technology
and it should be possible to minimize the environmental impact of production
from the bottom up, both in use and disposal. This includes energy
efficiency, biological toxicity and the use of biodegradable and compostable
materials. The latter aspect covers not only the electronic materials
themselves, but also their production solvents (e.g. use of water and
alcohols as opposed to chlorinated solvents) and device encapsulation
materials.
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The potential for plastic electronics in the UK/global economy
2.1 The economic impact of the plastic electronics sector could be very significant,
both in terms of businesses and jobs created and in terms of revenue. The global
market is currently worth around $1bn with predictions that this will rise dramatically
over the next two decades reaching $30 bn by 20151 and $330 bn by 20272.
Conventional fabrication plants for electronics and displays require substantial
capital resources (of the order of $100 millions). Plastic electronic devices in
contrast can be produced through ink-jet printing at room temperature and pressure.
As such fabrication plant cost is greatly reduced moving within the reach of small
and medium-sized companies.
2.2 Plastic electronics have the potential to address some of the key challenges of
this century: environmental protection, and energy generation and usage, through
the low energy consumption in production, use and recycling, as compared with
traditional electronic technologies. There is also the potential for devices to be
engineered to have a much lower biological impact in terms of toxic waste in
production and disposal.
2.3 Some key potential usages of plastic electronics are:
Solar cells: OPV solar cells are lightweight, flexible, can cover large areas
and can be mass-produced through solution processing. Although current
efficiencies are relatively low (5%) compared to their inorganic
semiconductor counterparts (28%), their comparatively low production costs
compensate for this in the short term, and in the longer term there is scope
for improvement. Such technology could have a major impact on the field of
renewable energy generation.
Displays & lighting: OLED-based information displays (both single-colour and
full-colour) and large-area lighting are lightweight, flexible and can be massproduced by solution processing. OLED-based devices have the same
richness of colour of a conventional cathode ray tube (CRT) or plasma
screens but have advantages in energy efficiency, size and weight. Largearea OLED lighting is also energy efficient and can be designed in any type
of curved shape or flexible structure, producing a range of exciting new
design and products.
Display electronics, radio frequency identity tags (RFID), data storage &
processing: Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) have similar advantages
to OPVs and OLEDs. They can be used as thin film transistors in liquid
crystal displays (LCD) and electronic paper displays, allowing the production
of flexible, lightweight devices. They can also be used to produce cheap,
printed RFID tags for commercial and security measures. Novel lightweight
electronic devices are also possible, with the potential for moving into new
three-dimensional architectures not possible with conventional silicon based
electronics.
Sensors: Organic photodiodes (OPDs) can be used to produce new imaging
and sensing devices. These include biological sensors (e.g. the replacement
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http://www.nanomarkets.net/news/pr_detail.cfm?PRID=195
http://www.idtechex.com/products/en/articles/00000640.asp
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human eye project at Imperial College) and X-ray imaging devices for
medical use.
Telecom & optical signal processing: Polymer and small molecule
semiconductors can be used in optical amplifiers and optically pumped
lasers for use in fibre optic networks. Their ease of processing could be used
to fabricate using simple methods a range of different optical device
architectures for telecommunications, local area networks and all-optical
processing.
2.4 There are also hybrid technologies that could combine conventional silicon
electronics and organic electronics on both glass and plastic substrates. These could
provide a quicker route to market than novel technologies.
2.5 Current production techniques are principally molecular deposition by thermal
evaporation and ink-jet printing from solution. Strong opportunities exist in developing
these and other production methods. Highly specialized, precision engineering firms
will be needed to develop these new techniques; however, there is a very weak UK
presence within these fields compared with other European nations (e.g. Switzerland,
Germany and Finland).
How universities, industry, venture capital and Government are involved in the
development of the UK plastic electronics sector
Universities:
3.1 There are several examples of a very high level of involvement in the basic
research that underpins plastic electronics within the UK. Universities currently
undertaking this research area include: Imperial College, Cambridge, Oxford, UCL,
QMUL, Sheffield, Manchester, St Andrews and Durham, principally in the
departments of physics, chemistry and materials science. The main research
interests are in displays and solar cells, but there are other possible applications in
sensors.
Industry:
3.2 There is a broad range of companies currently involved in plastic electronics R&D
in the UK including Cambridge Display Technology (CDT), Merck, Plastic Logic,
Microemissive Displays (MED) BP Solar, Sharp Laboratories of Europe, Kodak UK
and QinetiQ. There is also some investment in production facilities within the UK: a
plastic hybrid solar cell manufacturer (G24i) is showing an intention to build a major
facility in Cardiff. However, CDT was recently sold to the Japanese Sumitomo
Corporation and Plastic Logic has moved it production base overseas.
Venture Capital:
3.3 Start up companies such as CDT, MED, Plastic Logic and Molecular Vision
benefited from both a supply of venture capital together with government support;
these companies are now successful multi-million pound enterprises. Those wishing
to attempt to repeat these successes still experience difficulty in obtaining private
funding. Venture capital organisations need to understand the particular risks and
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benefits of high-technology start-ups; an issue highlighted in the Engineering and
Technology Board report Set and the City3.
Government:
3.4 Government has a role to play in providing funding at a proof-of-concept stage of
innovations and also providing assistance at the technology readiness stages of what
is currently a relatively healthy embryonic industry. This approach has previously
yielded successes such as Plastic Logic and MED. An implementation of ‘missionled’ funding and the application of an intelligent procurement strategy in this area
have the potential to encourage growth.
Whether the UK engineering and manufacturing sector are set up to handle
growth in this area or other areas like it
4.1 The UK is currently not well placed to fully exploit the domestic strength of
scientific research in the field of plastic electronics. In common with related industries
such as nanotechnology and biooptics, there is an insufficient number of trained
engineering being produced in the UK to meet current demand within the plastic
electronics industry. (In particular the levels of qualifications and experience required
by start-up companies working in this field often results in them recruiting staff almost
exclusively from overseas.)
4.2 In the case of plastic electronics there are possible avenues for re-training
workers from other electronics and printing industries to meet demand. However, to
date we do not believe that this has been pursued with sufficient vigour by
government and skills agencies and there is very little awareness of the issues in
universities. The UK must substantially increase its work force from the present level
in order to be competitive with overseas centres. World-leading companies outside
UK including Sony, Samsung, BASF, Philips, Epson, DuPont, Sumitomo and Kodak
are already producing commercial devices such as full-colour and single-colour
displays for mobile phones, electric razors and MP3 players and flat screen OLED
televisions.
4.3 There are strong growth opportunities in direct manufacturing in the UK. Given
the current predicted global market revenues, a large number of major international
companies (e.g. Sony, Philips, Samsung, LG and Epson) are putting considerable
resources into this area to produce the equipment needed to produce plastic
electronics devices. In contrast in UK there are very few companies working in the
area so much of the equipment may have to be purchased from overseas (although
there are some aspects of high technology printing techniques in which the UK is
very strong). The two UK companies who are leading this field, MED and Plastic
Logic, are currently building fabrication plants in Dresden, Germany (likewise US firm
Nanosolar Inc. is building OPV fabrication plants in California and also in Germany).
One of the reasons for the attractiveness of Germany to such high-technology
manufacturing companies is the ready supply of skilled workers.
4.4 Underlying the exploitation of plastic electronics research and device
manufacture is the question of the market. High quality research work from
universities in the past has been ‘forced’ into markets that may not be in need or
have rather different requirements. To fully realise the potential of plastic electronics,
more thought should be given to whether the plastic electronics technology really
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Set and the City, etb. 2006
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offers the ideal solutions to product needs. Despite the research strength in the UK,
there are currently not enough proof-of-concept demonstrators in the field and as
such there are serious concerns about the stability and longevity of the end product.
We recommend the Technology Strategy Board’s approach of establishing first the
market needs and then assessing much of this technology sector will meet that need
be more closely adhered to.
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The Institute of Physics is a scientific membership organisation devoted
to increasing the understanding and application of physics. It has an
extensive worldwide membership and is a leading communicator of
physics with all audiences from specialists through government to the
general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader
in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics
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