Organic Transistor/Memory Market Will Hit $21.6 Billion By 2015

Fueled by a growing demand for flexible, large-area electronic circuitry, the organic transistor and memory market will climb to $21.6 billion by 2015, according to a research report by from industry analyst NanoMarkets. Applications driving the growth of this market include packaging, displays, smart cards, and sensors. According to the report — "Next Chips: Organic Transistors and Memories and the Applications They Will Enable" — during the past year organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) and memories have achieved performance at or better than some silicon TFTs. This is the result of significant investments made in production facilities for these devices. In fact, organic logic and memory may be the best chance for bringing down the cost of RFID to a point where item-level tracking of moderately priced products is economically feasible, the report said. The study predicts that RFID that uses organic circuitry will become an $11.6 billion market. Also, smart cards are an untapped opportunity for organic transistors and memory, with the market expected to be worth more than $4.0 billion by 2015. This assumes, however, that production innovations are developed to get around the problems of the high-temperature lamination that is used in card manufacture. In the recent past, the development of organic memory has lagged behind that of OTFTs, according to the report. But it is now catching up rapidly. By 2015, $16.1 billion in electronic products are expected to contain organic memories.