Solvay, Thinfilm in commercial agreement to market Solvene polymer for applications in printed electronics

Solvay Solexix will begin to market its newly-developed Solvene polymer for applications in printed electronics with its partner Thin Film Electronics ASA. Thinfilm and Solvay started collaboration, in 2007, in the field of polymer printed memories, with the goal to optimize Solvay's ferroelectric polymer materials to enhance the performance of Thinfilm's memory technology. "Memory will be a crucial component in the rapidly growing printed electronics market, which is fuelled by new applications. Our partnership with Solvay paves the way for the next generation of printed electronic applications and high volume production of Thinfilm MemoryTM. As we ramp up production with our manufacturing partners, the agreement with Solvay assures commercial supply of memory polymer in large quantities," says Rolf Åberg, CEO Thinfilm. "Furthermore, this unique polymer composition will make it possible for other companies in Printed Electronics to begin production of Thinfilm Memory." "Solvay has identified printable organic electronics as an area of growth that undoubtly will be pushed by the need for more information, everywhere and anytime, of our modern Society. Thinfilm's innovative technology in printed electronics, gives us an excellent partner in such a quickly emerging field," says Pierre Joris, Managing Director of Solvay Solexis. "As leader in specialty polymers, Solvay Solexis has experience and know how about developing and producing the sophisticated material solution needed for such applications, which eventually will benefit our customer base." Thinfilm's technology is based on using a ferroelectric polymer as the functional memory material sandwiched between two sets of electrodes. A key competitive advantage of Thinfilm's memory technology is that it is fully printable in high volume roll-to-roll machines. The jointly developed polymer formulation leverages both Solvay's and Thinfilm's intellectual property. The combination of new materials, such as the new, unique Solvene TM polymer, new technology such as Thinfilm's, along with cost effective, large area, high volume deposition and patterning reel-to-reel production processes (i.e., printing), will open up a myriad of new applications. Thin, light-weight, flexible, small, and low cost electronic devices made from polymer will characterize this new and exciting industry, which is projected to grow to US$ 55 billion by 2020, according to IDTechEx, of which about one third is expected to be printed transistors and memory. The applications for such devices include integrated circuits, sensors, flexible displays, memory modules, photovoltaic cells, batteries, rollable solar cells, diagnostic devices, radio frequency identification tags ("RFIDs"), smart packages, and anti-counterfeit and anti-theft devices