Plastic Logic - Plastic chips and electronics - the Next Tek Revolution

By: Sarah_Jones

A British firm, Plastic Logic has announced that it will build the world's first factory to manufacture plastic electronic circuits.

The firm aims to have the factory operational by early 2008. The factory will produce large sheets of flexible plastic upon which circuits will be printed, much as circuits are printed upon silicon wafers today. These can then be used in a whole host of flexible devices focusing on flexible display units already on the market and being produced by the likes of Panasonic and Sony. I.e. flexible plastic books that can literally hold a thousand books.

The key benefits of plastic chips will be cost, as silicon based chips require high temperatures and in clean dust free facilities, whereas plastic polymer technologies can use techniques similar to those used to mass produce magazines and newspapers, which means they are much cheaper and easier to produce and will lead to a new technological revolution.

The technology is in the early stages, so the speed comparison between plastic chips and current silicon chips cannot be made. However, once the technology takes off then the gap is expected to narrow. Several other firms are also working on plastic chips, such as Lucent, Samsung and Phillips to name three.

The British Firm, has secured venture capital of $100m of equity finance to create the first fully commercial plastic electronics production facility which will start to produce display modules in 2008.

The company was originally spun out of Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory in 2000. The fundamental innovations created in the Cavendish and further developed and industrialised by Plastic Logic will enable new product concepts in a range of applications including displays, sensors and radio frequency identification. Independent experts from IDTechEx forecast plastic electronics will be a $30 billion industry by 2015, and could reach as much as $250 billion by 2025.

The company's first target market is flexible active-matrix displays for electronic readers. Plastic Logic is partnering as appropriate to bring compelling and iconic consumer products to market enabled by our flexible displays. This requires a highly integrated approach to module and end product design and we are therefore building a world-class product design team.

Plastic Logic is a privately held company that has attracted investment from a group of financial investors including, Amadeus Capital Partners , Oak Investment Partners , Tudor Investment Corporation , Intel Capital , PolyTechnos Venture-Partners , Banc of America Equity Partners , Morningside , Dow Venture Capital , BASF , Nanoteh Partners , Siemens Venture Capital (SVC) , and Yasuda Enterprise Development Co., Ltd

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