Sunnyvale, CA-based Kovio, Inc. (www.kovio.com), introduces reportedly the world's first all-printed, high-performance, silicon thin-film transistor (TFT)—a key building block that will enable the integration of printed electronics into everyday products. Kovio made the announcement last month at the Printed Electronics USA 2007 conference in San Francisco (www.IDTechEx.com).

Based on breakthroughs in nanotechnology and materials science, Kovio has developed the electronic equivalent of color inks for graphics printing, the company says. These functional electronic inks include silicon, doped silicon, metals and insulators. Combining functional electronic inks with high-resolution printing technologies, Kovio has printed high-performance silicon TFTs at a fraction of the cost of conventional lithography-based silicon technology. The significantly lower cost is possible as a result of additive digital-printing processes, lower capital expenditures and faster cycle time.

Initial applications for the printed TFT include low-cost RFIDs for item-level tagging. Kovio expects to start product shipments by the end of 2008.