Printable Electronics

Xerox develops silver ink to usher in new era of low cost printable electronics

By Darren Quick

01:35 October 28, 2009 PDT

Silicon is the main substrate used for the integrated circuits found in almost all electronic equipment available today. However, silicon could soon be replaced by plastic, film or even fabrics, with Xerox scientists developing a low-temperature silver ink that they say paves the way for the commercialization and low-cost manufacture of printable electronics. This process will offer manufacturers an inexpensive way to add “intelligence” or computing power to a wide range of surfaces to produce things like electronic clothing and cheap games. Read More

Printable batteries to make light work of embedded electronics

By Dario Borghino

18:44 July 6, 2009 PDT

The main problems with today's battery technology is that, despite gradual advancements in recent years, cells are still too big, heavy and expensive, making them impractical for the many applications in which weight or price play an essential role. Researchers at the Fraunhofer research facility in Germany, however, have taken a radically different approach towards the building process and have developed an incredibly light, thin and inexpensive battery that could - if such a thing is possible - end up bringing even more electronics into our everyday life. Read More

Flexible Thin Film Solar Cells to be printed like money

By Paul Evans

20:37 February 23, 2009 PST

Scientists developing flexible, large area, cost-effective, reel-to-reel printable plastic solar cells have announced that trials have commenced which promise a new era of solar cells that are printed like money. These printable solar cells offer advantages over traditional solar technology because of the potential to mass produce the cells cheaply using polymer printing technology, a process which has already been used in banknotes in more than 20 countries. Read More

Portable Printstik printer

By Emily Clark

01:33 May 22, 2008 PDT

Planon, maker of the DocuPen ultra-portable color scanner, has released a highly portable 1" x 10.75" x 1.9"printer designed for use with smart phones and other Bluetooth enabled devices. The “Printstik” holds a cartridge roll of 20 pages of paper and can print up to three pages per minute. Read More

Printable electronics on the rise

By Loz Blain

June 27, 2007 We've written before about printable electronics, a relatively new field in which common printing techniques are used in conjunction with conductive electronic inks to mass-produce extremely thin, flexible and cheap electronic circuits. The technology has been producing breakthroughs in flexible e-paper displays, smart labels such as RFID tags, animated posters and active clothing. Industry analysts are encouraged by the quick take-up of the technology, as well as growing research into future uses - and are predicting that more than 15,000 specialized printable electronics printers will ship between 2007 and 2013. Read More