Pushing low-cost sensors to market

Citation

(2009), "Pushing low-cost sensors to market", Sensor Review, Vol. 29 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2009.08729dab.002

Pushing low-cost sensors to market

Article Type: News From: Sensor Review, Volume 29, Issue 4

A NanoMarkets White Paper

March 2008

Synopsis: one of the less talked about markets for printed and organic electronics is sensors. In fact, printed electronics is already used for sensor electrodes and to fabricate DNA arrays. In the future, NanoMarkets expects much wider use of printed electronics, including the printing of the on-board processing power. New materials – such as printed silicon and rubrene transistors – will help in this regard. And, while most printed sensors have used screen printing the past, other printing modes are looking promising for fabricating sensors, flexo can do it in greater volumes and inkjet with more accuracy.

There are many promising markets today for electronic sensors, if mainstream silicon technology could produce sensors at a cost that’s low-enough for most of these markets. Bringing diagnostics closer to the patient and improving the coverage of both environmental and security monitoring in major public buildings are just two that spring to mind. This leaves a wide-open opportunity for alternative materials and manufacturing technologies. Two of the strategies that suggest themselves in this regards are the use of functional printing and the use or organic electronic materials. And both of these approaches are already in play.

Figure 1

NanoMarkets believes that sensors using organic and/or printed electronics are poised to surpass $220 million in revenues in 2008 and will surge ahead to exceed the $1 billion mark in 2013. However, in a recent report entitled Printed and Organic Sensor Markets: 2007-2015, we predict that the application mix of the market will undergo some very interesting changes over this time period (Figure 1).