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28 The PCB Magazine • August 2014 identified for the organic and printed electronics industry. The roadmap represents the common perspectives of the OE-A membership—with more than 250 experts who worked together on it. Based on the analysis of all applications and technologies, key challenges ("red brick walls") that have yet to be overcome and key trends to get organic electronics ready for mass produc- tion were identified. "In the future, organic and conventional electronics will be combined more and more," OE-A Chairman Dr. Stephan Kirchmeyer says. "Hybrid electronics—combining printed, flex- ible electronics with building blocks containing classical (silicon) electronics—will pave the way for mass production. The industry is working towards integration of organic and printed elec- tronics in new products, and this opens up new possibilities in the market." As the OE-A Roadmap has identified, hybrid systems that integrate printed and silicon-based components in a heterogeneous process will lead to new products and be especially impor- tant for market entry in the short and medium term. In addition, production techniques well known from PCB manufacturing can be em- ployed. For these hybrid technologies, the road- map summarizes combinations of processes including large-area photolithography, screen printing or printed circuit board technologies that make use of flexible substrates (e.g., poly- mer films or paper). Materials are deposited by spin coating, doctor blading or large-area vacu- um deposition, and in some cases, also partially by printing. Ink-jet printing and laser-pattern- ing are additional techniques that are grouped in the hybrids and enable production at mid- range cost levels. HyBRID SySTEMS FOR ORGANIC AND PRINTED ELECTRONICS continues figure 1: oe-a roadmap illustrating the common perspectives of oe-a members. (source: oe-a)