Nectec forms a Plastic Electronics Consortium

Nectec's  Nanoelectronics and MEMS Lab director Adisorn Tuantranont said the plastic-electronics, or the printed-electronics industry is an upcoming sector, which will create much-needed opportunities in Thailand and the global market in the near future.

Plastic electronics is a branch of electronics that deals with conductive polymers, plastics or small molecules. Plastic-electronic designs and produces an emerging, new generation of electronics - plastic thin-film hybrid electronics. 

It will be applied to large areas, offering the ability to integrate low-cost sensors, displays and passive or active electronic components.

Harrop & Das reported that the global market of the plastic-electronics industry last year was worth US$1.18 billion (Bt41 billion).  The market will climb to $13 billion in 2012 and will jump to $48.2 billion in 2017.

To capture a part of the new industry for Thailand, Nectec will cooperate with local universities and international and local private-sector organizations to set up a Plastic Electronics Consortium, which aims to transfer technology and develop new technology to support plastic electronics. It will enhance productivity and potential of upstream, idle-stream and down-stream industries. It is also developing R&D related plastic-electronics technology.

Adisorn said in the initial step, the consortium will transfer technology to develop radio-frequency-identification-related printed antennae, followed by developing hybrid antenna chips and the development of all printed RFID technology within three years.

Nectec has formulated a road map to support and develop the plastic-electronics industry in Thailand between 2007 and 2014.

The agency has divided the plan into three layers - application development, product development and technology development.

In the first layer, the agency will develop various applications related to plastics electronics, such as diagnostic sensors, logistic labels, e-papers or e-books and, display and textile applications.

In the second layer, the agency will develop new products, such as smart packaging, Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) displays, sensors, RFID, solar cells, printed batteries, textile computing and e-papers.

Lastly, the agency will develop various technologies, such as conventional electronics/ microelectronics, plastic electronics, hybrid electronics, and role-to-role manufacturing to support upstream, middle stream and down-stream industries.

"Plastic-electronics technology will play important role in Thailand and the global market since it will create products to support various other industries. It will also enhance competitiveness of the country among other countries," Adisorn said.

Strategy Research and Industry Indictors Division senior researcher Kalaya Udomvitid said plastic electronics will enable local industries, such as the logistics sector, to utilise new technology and products, such as smart logistics and smart packaging in order to reduce costs of business management. 

"I think that Thailand will able to utilise plastic-electronics technology to develop new kind of products such as RFID, OLED and smart packaging for the commercial market within the next 3 to 5 years," Kalaya said.