Breaking through: Printable electronics is attracting growing interest and is gearing up for commercial applications

Printable electronics are much cheaper and more physically flexible than conventional electronics, using semiconductors based on organic inks printed on flexible plastic substrates similar to how labels and newspapers are made. Plastic Logic, a company launched in 2000, is working on technologies for commercial applications and while some applications incorporating printable circuitry in toys are already commercial, more sophisticated displays and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags could be launched by 2008.