C. Clint Bolte & Associates

Technology Evolution Continues to Offer Cost Savings and
Market Niche Opportunities to the Innovators

Two hundred print technology aficionados gathered at the Pittsburgh Airport Hyatt February 8-10 for the twelfth annual GATF Tech Alert Conference to hear leading edge case studies on applying the latest digital technologies successfully and profitably. Additionally every graphic communications firm's strategic planning was greatly enhanced by hearing the technology prognostications expected to impact the printing industry and its clients in the surprisingly near future. This was all presented in concise, vivid detail without a lot of scientific complexity.

The keynote address topic highlighted a niche, though potentially quite large, printing application that the most innovative printers will look forward to capitalizing on within a surprisingly short period of time. "I believe that the printing industry has an opportunity to capture new revenue streams from the soon to be created Printed Electronics Market," remarked Dr. Daniel Gamota. This senior manager of the Organic and Molecular New Products Department at the Motorola Advanced Technology Center and holder of 22 patents with another 23 pending described how he expects conventional printers to be the key resource in helping to roll out inexpensive organic transistors manufactured into a variety of traditional printed products.

One potential future printed electronics product, radio frequency identifier (RFID), could be manufactured inexpensively using conventional printing platforms that have been modified to achieve sub-micron features, according to Dr. Gamota. The "printed OFET process" is the way Dr. Gamota describes the four step additive process for printing the separate elements of the transistor: gate, dielectric, source, drain, and active layer. While not necessarily understanding how these elements interact to create the electronic responses, the attendees were led to visualize how a four unit press operating at several thousand sheets an hour or many hundred feet per minute provided the ideal medium for manufacturing these precise little transistors. He anticipated the process color printing to be done initially with the transistors applied by the last four units or as a separate pass.

Designed to be no longer passive, i.e., they will initiate programmed information in response to an electronically initiated inquiry or stimulus, these transistors are planned to be low cost as well as low functionality. Examples of these new products might be printed wallpaper that in detecting the mood of the room's occupant might change color hues to help the occupant calm down or be more productive. The hue shift could also be requested. A coupon in a newspaper or magazine could have an active imbedded transistor to accentuate a point or feature in the advertisement as the page is opened.

Initially the transistors are not expected to be any more than 80% effective due to broad tolerances experienced in the printing process, which should adversely impact yield. Those unknowns include surface roughness of the paper, dimensional stability, and reactivity to any solvents present. However, multiple transistors on the same lithographic image may statistically improve that yield.

The great majority of research efforts in this field are aiming at the higher value applications, which often are electronically encoded information designed to stay with a product through out its supply chain life cycle. However, Motorola and its consortium of venture partners to include Dow, PARC, and Xerox Canada are targeting novel materials, manufacturing platforms, and testing strategies to design and assemble low-cost wire less products based on printed organic and molecular devices.

While this team of companies will create and establish the printed organic and molecular semiconductor supply chain, they expect ultimately to qualify printers to bring this technology to the mainstream. A general commercial printer said he had a client who might be interested in testing this technology and how soon could such tests be initiated. Dr. Gamota responded that this might be feasible in less than two years.

Initial research results will be shared at this spring's TAGA conference. The first electronics printing workshop will be held this coming fall.

If ever there were a technology marriage made in heaven it would be a union of this venture consortium and GATF. GATF's extraordinary depth of applied research and product application refinement on the industry's state of the art equipment would allow the definition of the supply chain elements in the fastest possible time frame. Coupled with the Foundation's testing, qualifying or certifying, applied training capabilities, and shear credibility within the Printing Industry, there is no faster way to line up the most appropriate printers to roll this innovation into the market.

A number of colleges and private sector research entities, which claim to have printing applied research expertise, would logically be trying to tie in with this consortium. This amazing opportunity clearly rests on Mrs. Makin and Ryan's shoulders, as CEO and COO of PIA/GATF, to bring this long-term liaison into the fold quickly.