Semiconductors, Computing & AI

At a time of financial uncertainty, companies know they must accelerate their move into the future. That is why there is a huge interest in printed electronics, a subject that pushes all the right buttons - environmental, affordable and leading to a new market of $300 billion that is just there for the taking. That is why the giant corporations are attending Printed Electronics USA, December 3-4 in San Jose, California.

Third Generation Active RFID is the Ubiquitous Sensor Network (USN) sometimes known as the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and characterized by the tag doubling as a reader and a so-called mesh network being used with a choice of sensors on each tag.

By value, we forecast that in 2009 the value of the RFID market will grow by 23% over 2008, and in 2010 it will grow by 25% over 2009 - not exponential, but still very strong growth.

One million transistors is not enough for the RFID chip in the new e-passports because, increasingly, they have to double as driver's licenses, multipurpose cards and other media.

A new range of transistors using thin films of organic or inorganic compounds as the semiconductors and gate dielectrics are being pursued by organizations in over 30 countries. The new IDTechEx report

The eighth IDTechEx RFID Europe event broke all previous records with over 350 delegates from 19 countries who heard major corporations sharing their RFID success and needs.

This year, for the first time, China has become the world's largest market for RFID by value. A new report

The future $300 billion market for printed electronics is emerging via thin film electronics. The contribution of organic materials to this is greatly publicized but the best devices being developed usually rely on inorganic or combined inorganic/organic technology. The more select groups developing these inorganic materials and devices have a great future. IDTechEx has published the first study on Inorganic Printed and Thin Film Electronics. Here Dr Peter Harrop summarises some of the findings.

With about $5 billion being spent on RFID in 2007, of which about $2.24 billion is for tags, what are the favourite RFID specifications?

Working Group for IEEE Rubee™ Network Standard meeting in Boston on Feb 20