The market for e-paper based display products is booming. Driven on by the extraordinary success of the Kindle e-reader ther are now over 50 variant e-reader products that have recently entered the market. Recent forecast suggest the total e-paper display market sector will grow rapidly over the next five years with a CAGR in excess of 40%, generating revenues in of the order of $9.6 billion by 2018.
E-paper displays mimic the appearance of traditional ink on paper to combine the potential of digital information and media content with the familiarity, quality and convenience of paper-like media. Competition with products such as the Apple iPad is driving forward the development of e-paper technology to build on the energy efficient and easy to read platform and incorporate into this versatile technology, colour, touch screens and flexible materials for a robust “unbreakable” display.
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It is widely recognised that this next generation of e-paper displays will demand higher performance backplane and frontplane materials to achieve these aims. Smartkem’s organic semiconductors for e-paper TFT backplane manufacture will be key in the development of this new generation e-paper displays, offering a solution-based flexible semiconductor with high charge mobility and benchmark stability and reliability characteristics.
Whilst substantial growth is expected in the demand for e-readers, there also exists a large market for additional e-paper products such as e-textbooks, e-newspaper, mobile phones, electronic shelf labels, point of purchase and public signage displays. Smartkem expects to be a key supplier of materials to this rapidly evolving and exciting market with their unique range of organic semiconductors.