“Flexible electronics” is an idea that has been with us for a while, but is only now beginning to inch towards reality. The concept of displays that can be rolled up and put in a pocket, or solar and lighting panels that conform to contours of a building fabric are attractive ideas, both from aesthetic and practical standpoints.  But they will require flexible substrates and while a large share of the flexible electronics and solar panel market will be supported on plastic substrates, NanoMarkets believes that a substantial share of flexible substrate market will be garnered by “flexible glass.”  In addition, we believe that flexible glass has an important role to play in the flexible encapsulation business.  Flexible glass brings to the market the familiarity, transparency, rigidity, thermal stability and scratch resistance that conventional plastics cannot offer.

This report examines the flexible glass products currently on the market and where they are likely to generate new revenues.  It also discusses where the next wave of flexible glass and similar products will be coming from and what sectors of the display and solar panel industry will be most likely to make use of flexible glass for both substrates and encapsulation. This report includes an eight-year market forecast with breakouts by types of materials and specific applications.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

1.1  Background to this report

1.2  Objective and scope of this report

1.3  Methodology of this report

1.4  Plan of this report

 

2.1 Current Flexible Glass Products and Technologies

2.1.1 AGC/Asahi Glass
2.1.2 Corning
2.1.3 Nipon Electric Glass
2.1.4 Schott
2.1.5 Tokyo Electron Glass
2.1.6 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
2.1.7 Likely market entrants:  From China with glass?

2.2 “Near-flexible” glass

2.3 “Pseudo-flexible” glass (ceramic/polymer mixes)

2.4  Flexible glass versus other flexible substrates

2.4.1 Plastics

2.4.2 Metal foil

2.5 Flexible glass and encapsulation

2.5 Manufacturing flexible glass:  trends and challenges

 

3.1 The future use of flexible glass in R2R processes

3.2 E-readers

3.2.1 The role of flexible glass in “electronic paper”

3.3 Cell phones and slate computers

3.3.1 Flexible glass and rollable/foldable displays

3.4 Flexible glass in touch panels

3.5 Flexible glass and the future of building-integrated PV (BIPV)

3.5.1 BIPV shingles

3.5.2 Flexible glass and BIPV glass

3.5.3 Other BIPV markets

3.6 Flexible glass for OLED lighting

3.7 Other markets and applications concepts for flexible glass

3.7.1 Sensors

3.7.2 Flexible batteries

3.7.3 Chip packages

3.7.4 Optical storage

3.7.5 Wearable displays

3.7.6 Is there flexible glass in the future of televisions?

 

4.1 Forecasting methodology

4.2 Forecast by type of flexible glass

4.3 Forecast by application/end-user market

4.4 Forecast by type of application (substrate, encapsulation, etc.)