Memorandum 123
Submission from the Cambridge Integrated
Knowledge Centre
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Plastic Electronccs Engineering is both
a radical opportunity and founded in technology and science developments
securely vested in the UK's competency. For UK government to assist
the translation of that opportunity into wealth creation in the
UK it is essential that the engineering discipline is engaged
and advanced through a coherent strategy. It is necessary to consider
both the contemporary developments in engineering as well as the
radical new developments and this requires a sustained policy
intervention to ensure that the stakeholders are all engaged in
the process. It is important that the deliverys of trained resource
and the transfer of skills from other sectors is considered along
side the science and technology developments. In the main body
of this submission these points are discussed in greater detail.
Introduction
2. The Cambridge Integrated Knowledge Centre
in Advanced Manufacturing Technologies for Photonics and Electronics
(CIKC) brings together research activities on molecular and macromolecular
materials in the Engineering and Physics Departments of Cambridge
University with the expertise of the Judge Business School, the
Institute for Manufacturing and the Centre for Business Research
to create innovative knowledge exchange activities spanning research,
training and exploitation. With funding from EPSRC of £7
million over five years and £5 million from industrial sponsors,
CIKC will orchestrate the creation of a centre of excellence in
the field of low temperature and additive processing for the fabrication
of products in the fields of distributed electronics, flexible
electronics, displays and communications. The Mission of the Centre
is to provide the business and technical expertise and infrastructure
to enable those with exploitable concepts to achieve commercial
success.
3. CIKC was founded to respond to the need
for industry to develop advanced manufacturing for the new technologies
labelled as "Plastic Electronics", a technology vector
derivative of distributed electronics and flexible circuits. The
imperative is to enable paradigms using new macromolecular material
systems, and to create valid exploitation models for these innovations.
Developments in the molecular engineering of polymers, advanced
liquid crystals and nanostructures, are having a disruptive impact
on fields such as microelectronics, displays and communication
systems with the introduction of new low cost processes allowing
components to be fabricated on flexible substrates (or conformally
on non-planar surfaces). This technology thrust is accompanied
by societal needs to lower energy and environmental impact of
manufacturing processes. In turn, it reflects industry needs to
lower capital investment and operational costs of their manufacturing
technology. Coupled to market demand for integrated products and
mobile life-style enhancing (knowledge and "infotainment"
economy) products this is a market disruption and segmentation
event of great commercial significance. The penetration of soft
materials into the electronics and photonics markets has already
begun, and with a market estimate measured in $10s of billion
per annum, the UK must capitalize on its strength in the basic
science as well as build the engineering base to support the emergent
industry.
The Engineering Discipline in "Plastic Electronics"
4. Engineering is fundamentally the translation
of the science base into application driven technologies. In the
context of "Plastic Electronics" it is the primary role
of engineering to provide proofs that technology demonstrations
of the emergent propositions may be exploited in applications
plausibly of commercial potential.
5. In the current expressions of the technology,
engineering has a role to see that the new technology can be prosecuted
on manufacturing platforms and that the devices may be integrated
into production streams which have viable yields. In some of these
applications the developmental role of engineering will be to
translate the propositions onto existant tool-sets and to provide
the evolutionary propositions which develop those platforms and
processes to enable immediate adoption of the technology. However,
in the near and mid-term this must be coupled to development of
new paradigms enabling of the future tools and processes that
will achieve the production efficiency gains expected to derive
from these innovations. Thus at least these two streams of endeavour
are required:
6. Functionally complex integrated products
(such as mobile phones and flexible displays) are already adopting
the new materials and process technology and herein the process
and materials developments need to be married to the existing
CMOS and flexy-circuit paradigms.
7. Elsewhere radical new products and processes
are being created which have no precedent in contemporary industrial
deployment and here we must develop the manufacturing technology
as well as the fundamental proofs of "fitness-for-purpose".
8. Looking forwards, engineering as an interdisciplinary
science will continue to innovate and create new propositions
and scientific proofs relevant to this field. We can see this
most clearly in the exploration of novel materials and processes
for photovoltaic technology. It is to be expected that this early
exploration will also have relevance to the broader thrusts in
electronics and photonics.
9. The engineers required must span the
disciplines which will provide businesses the human resources
they require. A minimal expectation must be that due regard is
given to the need for production expertise, manufacturing management
(operational and supply-chain), science and technology professionals
and personnel with hands-on experience with the new and emergent
tools and methods. The implication is that training and re-training
opportunities must be created which are both theoretical and academic
as well as hands-on and practical. The balance to be struck here
will need to sustain both the demands of industry and the need
to develop educational and research infrastructure. Thus: secondary
and tertiary level education planning and resource; post-graduate
opportunities and support; continuous professional development
and knowledge exchange and dissemination are all required.
UK Economy: Potential impact of plastic electronics
10. Plastic electronics can integrate electronic
functionalities into a range of non-conventional substrates, and
in this way will enable new products, such as flexible, light-weight
and unbreakable displays, for applications such as electronic
newspapers or electronic books, POS displays, and eventually wall-sized
TV displays. OLEDs are already emerging as a potential alternative
to liquid crystal displays, although the introduction has been
slower than anticipated by some, and many analysts predict that
it will capture a significant market (for example, DisplaySearch
predicts OLED displays as a $5 billion market by 2009).
11. Flexible displays are one of the early
important applications of plastic electronics with significant
market potential ($10 billion by 2010 according to Samsung), others
areas include lighting (NanoMarkets predict $1.5 billion market
share by 2014), solar cells, intelligent packaging and RFID tags
and medical sensors. In each of the areas there is already strong
commercial interest. Overall projections for the printed and plastic
electronics industry as a whole range up to $250 billion by 2025.
Many applications for plastic electronics can be considered as
part of the broader field of distributed electronics ie large
area electronics with local intelligence and added functionality
encompassing areas such as "chip-on-flexi".
12. Plastic electronics has good prospects
for the UK economy in that substantial manufacturing can be achieved
with much less capital costs than in conventional electronics
and hence new participants who are technically leading can have
major commercial impact. The UK will also be able to build on
its strong competence in circuit and consumer product design.
Companies currently operating as fabless silicon chip companies
will be able to apply their competence to plastic electronics
as manufacturing capacity becomes available. A healthy traditional
print industry already exists as well as great expertise in ink
jet printing (eg Xaar, Domino etc) and together with strengths
in molecular engineering from the pharmaceutical industry there
may be opportunities to translate these competences into this
arena. Europe is currently in a successful position in mobile
phones, lighting, photovoltaic and automotive areas and a UK plastic
electronics industry has the opportunity to play into these markets.
13. It is difficult to predict the likely
UK market share, but we note that the UK optoelectronics industry
reached a 20% world market share and this would appear to be realistically
achievable. Clearly there is significant potential for the UK
to establish a world leading position as plastic electronics evolves
into a mainstream technology. However the UK is not able to meet
all market opportunities in this space. It must focus on specific
areas where there are clear addressable routes to market.
Current UK involvement in development of plastic
electronics
14. The UK has an extremely strong research
base with a number of world-class university groups (including
Cambridge, Imperial, Liverpool, Durham, Oxford, Manchester) as
well as commercial sector research (Merck Chilworth Research Centre,
DuPont Teijin Films, Toppan Printing and Kodak European Research).
It is also leading in the early commercialisation of many first
generation plastic electronic applications through companies including
CDT, Plastic Logic, Elumin8, OLED-T, Pelikon, Plastic e-Print.
These companies have successfully raised large amounts of venture
capital funding, frequently from overseas; most notably Plastic
Logic raised $100 million in January 2007.
15. The EPSRC has supported scientific research
though several calls relating to plastic and carbon based electronics
as has the Technology Programme (most recently with an indicative
£5 million call). Several Knowledge Transfer Networks (in
Displays and Lighting, Photonics and Electronics) are in place
to facilitate interaction between firms (and with academia) in
this technology area. The Plastic Electronics Technology Centre
(PETeC) in Sedgefield represents a major investment (primarily
through One NorthEast and European Regional Development Fund)
to put in place pilot manufacturing facilities. CIKC can also
play a role facilitating liaisons between value-chain participants
and engaging directly in process and design development for the
fundamental components. Other research centres with important
roles to play in developing this area in the UK include the Welsh
Centre for Printing and Coating at Swansea University and the
Organic Materials Innovation Centre at Manchester University.
Is the UK well positioned to handle growth in
plastic electronics?
16. There is certainly potential for UK
to be world-leading. UK has developed many of the individual component
technologies and there is opportunity for UK SMEs to capture value
from early technological leads if these can be translated into
successful products. However, the value chain in the UK is dispersed
and SMEs lack strength to be vertically integrated without a major
customer to drive the market. Partnering with large system integrators
will be important for these SME in order to enable the route to
market. A sideways transfer of competence from the printing and/or
pharmaceutical industries would also be a good model.
17. There is a need to establish better
links between companies using intermediary institutions, such
as the Knowledge Transfer Networks and the CIKC, as "virtual
systems integrators" to create places where interactions
between components of the supply chain can be facilitated to ensure
a strong technology pipeline and produce a continuous flow of
innovations. Funding of institutional mechanisms to encourage
partnership and collaborative developments may provide greater
leverage than supporting a large number of individual projects.
18. To provide a secure market and therefore
a strong business case for investment, there needs to be a final
customer in place for the technology. UK government procurement
could be used to encourage the UK industry base and provide the
market pull to drive the development of the technology.
19. The UK has the skills base to support
commercialisation of this technology, however the availability
of appropriately trained staff for manufacturing is a possible
constraint given the loss of many skilled engineers in manufacturing
as well as the training solutions previously offered by large
electronics companies. Initiatives to address this should be supported.
20. Globalisation and the pace of market
change demand a different clock-speed for emergent industry which
poses a challenge to the UK financing which has traditionally
not been highly geared. Risk awareness and preparedness for early
stage investment is much greater in the USA. UK investment sector
has shown a reluctance to fund the capital investment required
to advance technology businesses into manufacturing and has thereby
favoured knowledge services/licensing approach which does not
offer the same potential value to the UK. Improving the investment
climate for to set up in the UK is critical to enable the UK to
create wealth from this technology.
21. In order to capture the significant
opportunity in plastic electronics the UK needs to put in place
well-articulated policy initiatives to provide the investment
climate to encourage national or overseas manufacturing industry
to locate facilities in the UK and in addition focus on grants
to enable knowledge exchange and research targeted at wealth creation.
Conclusion
22. In total the opportunity for the UK
in this field is very strong. Perhaps more telling to the UK economic
future is that this is a field where the infrastructure planning
has already been well advanced by initiatives such as the: Cambridge
Integrated Knowledge Centre (and the Cambridge regional technology
cluster); the Welsh Centre for Printing and Coating; the Plastic
Electronics Technology Centre; the Organic Materials Innovation
Centre at Manchester University; The UK Knowledge Transfer Networks
(in particular the UK Displays and Lighting KTN) and a strong
base in Universities and SME endeavours. Thus from the perspective
of the economic future this is an opportunity for the nation to
create a manufacturing base of large commercial potential. The
societal benefit from this can be drawn from environmental gains,
reduced energy use, the employment of staff and wealth creation.
March 2008
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