LYON, FRANCE – The technical challenges of flexible and printed electronics are close to being overcome, and the market will reach $1 billion in revenues by 2020, a new report stipulates.

In its "Flexible Applications Based on Printed Electronics Technologies 2013" report, Yole Développement says a supply chain is being created to support an industrial infrastructure. The research firm, which tracked the five main functions of flexible and printed electronics  – displaying, sensing, lighting, energy generating and substrates  – says some applications will be more likely than other to be successful. Bendable applications, for example, will undergo tough stress during use and technological challenges will be hard to overcome, Yole said.

The different degrees of freedom in flexibility that can be obtained can be divided into:

• Conformable substrate: the flexible substrate will be shaped in a definitive way after processing

• “Bendable” substrate: they can be rolled and bent many times (even if we consider it will not be a key feature coming from customer needs)

• “Unused” flexibility: in the end, the flexibility is not an added value to the customer

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