Silver Inks and Pastes

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Silver Inks and Pastes Markets--2011
Nano-301

Published December 2010

© NanoMarkets, LC

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Entire contents copyright NanoMarkets, LC. The information contained in this report is based
on the best information available to us, but accuracy and completeness cannot be
guaranteed. NanoMarkets, LC and its author(s) shall not stand liable for possible errors of fact
or judgment. The information in this report is for the exclusive use of representative
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Silver Inks and Pastes - 2011 (link to the report)

About the Report:

NanoMarkets has been tracking the silver inks and pastes market for five years and is Page | 1
considered the premier supplier of business information to this sector of the printed
electronics business. This report provides an entirely new look at the state of the silver inks
and pastes industry in which we consider the impact of the ongoing worldwide economic
problems and changing silver prices, along with the latest trends in the various applications
sectors into which silver inks and pastes are sold. We have also expanded coverage from last
year in a number of ways including more about both silver ink applications and the companies
that produce them.

With all this in mind we take an entirely fresh look in this report at what the suppliers of silver
inks are doing both in terms of how they are adapting their product ranges to the current
market environment and the market strategies that they plan to employ in the future. One
particular area of focus for us here is the future of nanosilver and other high-value inks. These
products have now been available for several years and their theoretical advantages are well
understood. Yet the market for such products has never seemed to take off in the way that
some advocates of these inks hoped they might. Is this because of inadequate formulations?
Or immature applications? Are nanosilver inks a product with a commercial future?

In this report, we also take a much closer look than ever before at the applications for silver
inks and pastes. In particular, we examine the latest developments in the display and lighting
space and how they are growing the opportunities for silver ink/paste makers. In addition,
we have also added considerably on our analysis of the opportunities in the sensor and thick
film applications sectors for silver formulations.

In this year’s report we have provided additional coverage of the silver/ink and paste
companies with an entirely new section on the small Asian companies that continue to be
players in this space. As usual we have included a granular eight-year market forecast for
silver inks and pastes that reflect today’s market environment and price points.


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Table of Contents
Executive Summary

E.1 Silver Inks and Pastes: Opportunities Despite the Recession Page | 2
E.2 Silver Prices: A Great Opportunity for Specialist Inks?
E.3 One Last Chance for Nanosilver Inks?
E.4 Photovoltaics, Thick-Film, Plasma Displays and Lighting: The Applications That Matter
E.4.1 Growth Opportunities for Thick-Film Silver: Are There Any?
E.4.2 Photovoltaics: A Market in Decline?
E.4.3 Opportunities for Silver Inks/Pastes in Lighting and Displays
E.4.4 Other Opportunities: Sensors, RFID and Transparent Coatings
E.5 Summary of Eight-Year Forecasts of Silver Ink Markets

Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Background to this Report
1.1.1 Nanosilver: The Answer to High Silver Prices? Or Still an Academic Effort?
1.1.2 Applications for Silver Inks and Pastes: Where is the Growth?
1.1.3 The Silver Market
1.2 Objectives and Scope of this Report
1.3 Methodology of this Report
1.4 Plan of this Report

Chapter Two: Silver Inks and Pastes: Technology and Product Developments

2.1 Thick-Film Silver Pastes: Four Ways to Make Money in an Era of Rising Silver Prices
2.2 The Low-Cost Supplier Option: Easier Said Than Done
2.3 Could Silver Pastes Have a Rival?
2.3.1 Etched Copper vs. Printed Silver: Old Technology Could Become New Again
2.3.2 Copper Inks: Once and Future Products?
2.3.3 Will High Silver Prices Bring a Carbon Age: Prospects for Carbon Inks
2.3.4 Prospects for Carbon/Silver Hybrids
2.3.5 More on Silver Hybrid Inks and Paste Markets
2.4 Silver of Another Kind: Flakes and Nanoparticles
2.4.1 A Role for Nanosilver Pastes?
2.5 Wither Nanosilver Inks?
2.5.1 Nanosilver, Inkjet and the Future
2.5.2 How Do Nanosilver Inks Compete with Traditional Pastes?
2.5.3 Pricing of Nanosilver Inks
2.6 Prospects for Silver in Transparent Conductors
2.7 Environmental, Health, and Safety Concerns with Silver Inks


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2.7.1 Concerns about Nanosilver
2.7.2 Future Regulation of Nanosilver?
2.7.3 Lead in Silver Inks
2.8 Significant Innovations in Ink and Paste Manufacturing
2.9 Key Points Made In This Chapter
Page | 3
Chapter Three: Applications and Markets for Silver Inks

3.1 Silver and Crystalline Silicon PV
3.1.1 Prospects for Silver in the Crystalline Silicon
3.1.2 Are There Substitutes for Silver in c-Si PV?
3.1.3 The Silver Lining in c-Si PV Front Electrodes
3.1.4 A Role for Nanosilver in c-Si?
3.1.5 Is There an Opportunity for Copper in c-Si?
3.2 TFPV and OPV: Silver's Future in Low-Cost PV
3.2.1 Silver Grids for TFPV
3.2.2 Silver in Back Electrodes for TFPV
3.2.3 Silver in Thin-Film Silicon PV
3.2.4 Silver in CdTe PV
3.2.5 Silver in CIGS PV
3.2.6 Silver in Organic and Dye-Sensitized Cell PV
3.3 Displays: Plasma's Appetite for Silver
3.3.1 Silver in Plasma
3.3.2 Silver in LCD and Other Types of Display Front Planes
3.3.3 Silver in Display Backplanes
3.3.4 Silver and Transparent Electrodes
3.4 OLED and EL Lighting: Printed Lights and Silver
3.4.1 OLEDs, Lighting and Silver
3.4.2 Bus Bars, OLED lighting and Silver
3.4.3 Transparent Electrodes in OLED Lighting
3.4.4 Silver in EL Lighting?
3.5 RFIDs and Silver
3.5.1 Silver for RFID Antennas and Interconnects
3.5.2 Is Silver Too Expensive for RFID?
3.6 Sensors and Silver
3.6.1 Uses of Printed Silver in Sensors
3.6.2 Sensors and Nanosilver Inks
3.6.3 Where are the Sweet Spots for Silver Ink/Paste Makers?
3.7 Remaining Opportunities in Traditional Thick-Film Applications for Printed Silver
3.7.1 Membrane Switches
3.7.2 PCBs
3.7.3 Capacitors and Supercapacitors


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3.7.4 Automotive Windshield and Mirror Heaters
3.8 Key Points Made in this Chapter

Chapter Four: Silver Ink Suppliers: Analysis of Strategies and Recent Developments
Page | 4
4.1 Advanced Nano Products (ANP) (Korea)
4.1.1 Silver Nanopastes
4.1.2 Nanosilver Ink for Inkjet
4.1.3 Ag/Pd Sol, Ag Paste
4.1.4 Our Take on ANP
4.2 Bayer MaterialScience (Germany)
4.2.1 Our Take on BayInk
4.3 Cambrios (U.S.)
4.3.1 Our Take on Cambrios
4.4 Cima NanoTech (U.S.)
4.4.1 Plasma Displays
4.4.2 Relationship with Toda Kogyo
4.4.3 Collaboration with Xaar and iTi
4.4.4 Our Take on CIMA NanoTech
4.5 Creative Materials (U.S.)
4.5.1 Our Take on Creative Materials
4.6 DuPont (U.S.)
4.6.1 Silver Bearing Conductors
4.6.2 Plasma TV Business
4.6.3 RF Devices
4.6.4 PV
4.6.5 Other Applications
4.6.6 Our Take on DuPont
4.7 Ercon (U.S.)
4.7.1 Our Take on Ercon
4.8 ESL Electroscience (U.S.)
4.9 Ferro (U.S.)
4.9.1 Our Take on Ferro
4.10 Five Star Technologies (U.S.)
4.10.1 Our Take on Five Star
4.11 Harima Chemical (Japan)
4.11.1 Our Take on Harima
4.12 Henkel Electronics (Germany)
4.12.1 Our Take on Henkel
4.13 Heraeus (Germany)
4.13.1 Our Take on Heraeus
4.14 InkTec (Korea)


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4.14.1 Our Take on InkTec
4.15 Methode Development Company (U.S.)
4.15.1 Our Take on Methode
4.16 NanoMas (U.S.)
4.16.1 Our Take on NanoMas
Page | 5
4.17 NovaCentrix (U.S.)
4.17.1 Photonic Curing
4.17.2 Our Take on NovaCentrix
4.18 PChem Associates (U.S.)
4.18.1 Our Take on PChem
4.19 Sun Chemical (U.S./Netherlands)
4.19.1 Our Take on Sun Chemical
4.20 Xerox (U.S.)
4.20.1 Our Take on Xerox

Chapter Five: Eight-Year Forecasts of Silver Inks and Pastes Markets

5.1 Forecasting Methodology
5.1.1 Data Sources
5.1.2 Scope of Forecast
5.1.3 Alternative Scenarios
5.1.4 Pricing of Silver and Silver Inks
5.2 Forecasts of Silver Ink and Paste Markets by Application
5.2.1 Photovoltaics
5.2.2 Displays
5.2.3 Solid-State Lighting
5.2.4 RFID
5.2.5 Sensors
5.2.6 Traditional Thick-Film Applications
5.3 Forecasts of Silver Ink Markets by Ink Type
5.3.1 Screen Printing with Conventional and Nanosilver Pastes
5.3.2 Jetted Inks: Nanosilver and Conventional
5.3.3 Inks for Flexo and Gravure: Conventional and Nano
5.3.4 Inks for Transparent Conductive Coatings
5.4 Summary of Market Forecasts

Acronyms and Abbreviations Used in this Report
About the Author


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List of Exhibits

Exhibit E-1: Summary of Eight-Year Forecasts of Silver Inks and Pastes ($ Millions)
Exhibit 3-2: Specs for Nanosilver Inks in "All-Printed RFID
Exhibit 4-1: ANP Nanosilver Inks for Inkjet
Page | 6
Exhibit 4-2: Creative Materials: Silver Ink Product Range
Exhibit 4-3: DuPont's Technology Roadmap
Exhibit 4-4: Five Star Technologies: ElectroSperse Product Line
Exhibit 4-5: Henkel Electronics: Acheson Silver Inks
Exhibit 4-6: InkTec Silver Conductive Inks
Exhibit 4-7: Methode Silver Ink Conductive Ink Products
Exhibit 4-8: Specifications of NanoMas' Nanosilver Ink
Exhibit 4-9: NovaCentrix: Metalon Inks
Exhibit 5-1: Silver Consumption in Crystalline Silicon PV Cells
Exhibit 5-2: Silver Consumption in Thin-Film, Organic, and DSC PV Cells
Exhibit 5-3: Silver Consumption in PV by Printing Method ($ Millions)
Exhibit 5-4: Eight-Year Forecasts of Silver Ink Market: Plasma Displays
Exhibit 5-5: Eight-Year Forecasts of Silver Ink Market: Solid-State Lighting Applications
Exhibit 5-6: Eight-Year Forecasts of Silver Ink Market: RFID Applications
Exhibit 5-7: Eight-Year Forecasts of Silver Ink Market: Sensor Applications
Exhibit 5-8: Eight-Year Forecasts of Silver Ink Market: Traditional Applications
Exhibit 5-9: Eight-Year Forecasts of Conventional and Nanosilver Pastes for Screen Printing ($
Millions)
Exhibit 5-10: Eight-Year Forecasts of Jetted Silver Inks ($ Millions)
Exhibit 5-11: Eight-Year Forecasts of Conventional and Nanosilver Inks for Flexo, Gravure, and
Other Printing ($ Millions)
Exhibit 5-12: Eight-Year Forecasts of Silver Inks for Transparent Conductive Films ($ Millions)
Exhibit 5-13: Summary of Eight-Year Forecasts of Silver Inks and Pastes ($ Millions)


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Silver Inks and Pastes: Opportunities Despite the Recession
The recession and slow, painful recovery have also had their impacts on the applications that
use silver inks and pastes. With such uncertainty in the economy, risk thresholds remain
substantially lower than they were before the recession set in, and investment capital has
been sorely limited. New material and application developments have been curtailed as Page | 7
companies fear that a wrong move could put them out of business. This is, of course, in part
the reason that nanosilver and inkjet R&D have been slowed, but it also applies directly to the
application areas we have analyzed for silver consumption in this report.

Bearing all this in mind, NanoMarkets believes that the total market for silver inks and pastes
will be approximately $4.5 billion, which is an increase from last year due primarily to the rise
in silver prices. And we expect the market size for these kinds of materials to stay in this
range for the next 8-10 years. However, this apparent stagnation in the market should not be
confused with an absence of money-making opportunities for the silver inks/pastes business.
Indeed, we believe that the rather dramatic position that this industry finds itself in with
regard to the silver price and the general economic condition has opened up some important
new opportunities for agile firms in this space who know where to look for them.

Silver Prices: A Great Opportunity for Specialist Inks?
The rapid and sustained escalation in silver prices is creating a great deal of anxiety for the
silver ink supply chain and recent correction notwithstanding, there are ample reasons to
assume that silver prices will remain high and perhaps even increase. Indeed, if the growth
rate were to continue throughout 2011, silver prices could be above $75 per ounce or by the
end of the year. NanoMarkets is not in the business of predicting silver or other commodity
prices, but if it were to happen then we would probably begin to see long-time users abandon
silver inks and pastes for less expensive substitutes that are inferior from a performance
perspective. After all, there are already important silver ink/paste markets where cost is a
major consideration for users; RFIDs and windshield heaters are two examples.

At some point an ultra-high price for silver would cause a massive decline in the industrial
silver business and with it a decline in the silver price. Nonetheless, we still expect many users
to take significant steps to reduce their silver consumption and their exposure to the high
prices. While this represents obvious opportunities for non-silver paste products there are
also opportunities to better manage silver ink waste or being the lowest cost supplier of a
given silver ink product. But the real opportunity that we see emerging as the result of a
prolonged period of "expensive" silver will be a rapidly growing market for hybrid silver inks


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that replace some of the silver with an alternative material or change the geometry of the
silver particles being used in a way that utilizes less bulk silver.

While these more specialist inks currently account for no more than a few percent of
traditional (i.e., non-nanosilver) inks/pastes at the present time, they could easily expand to Page | 8
(say) 15 percent of all traditional pastes and inks by 2016 or so. This would mean that we are
talking here of a market for specialist non-nano inks that would grow from well under $100
million to over $660 million by 2016.

NanoMarkets thinks the silver ink and paste market should see this likely trend as a great
money maker in the next few years, assuming the silver price continues to grow. After all, the
need that we believe will arise for specialist inks is a growth opportunity in a total market for
silver inks that, as a whole, looks rather stagnant. And these specialist inks are an especially
sweet spot, because they represent an opportunity to distinguish oneself in the silver
inks/pastes market, much of which is edging towards commoditization.

One Last Chance for Nanosilver Inks?
Nanosilver inks also play into this opportunity because gram for gram they use less silver than
traditional inks and because they are often used in conjunction with inkjet printers that
produce less waste than other forms of printing. However, this apparent opportunity will be
balanced by the fact that—on a unit basis—nanosilver inks are a lot more expensive than
regular inks.

This is a pity, because in our view, nanosilver is in need of a "strategic makeover." From the
NanoMarkets perspective, nanosilver is beginning to lose credibility and we have toned down
our expectations of how much money this part of the silver inks market can generate in
revenues over the next eight years.

We still expect some growth, of course, but we now expect the market for nanosilver inks to
be not much more than $300 million by 2016, which would make it just 7 percent of the silver
inks and pastes market as a whole. And one important take away from this number is that
there probably isn't much room for more than two or three nanosilver ink firms. Since there
are quite a few firms in this space and some of the really big specialty chemical firms could
enter it at any time, this means that some of the nanosilver ink start-ups that have been
hanging on through the recession could go belly up or—perhaps—be acquired at some time in
the next year or two.

Our disappointment in the nanosilver ink segment is based largely on the fact that the
nanosilver inks firms don't seem to have made much progress in the recent past and in


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particular seem to have few if any large users for their inks. Even given the recession, this is
hard to excuse and we think that there are some intrinsic reasons for this slow progress in the
nanosilver ink segment. Specifically, even when top-tier companies have offered new
nanosilver inks, the risk has been too great for users to modify their processes and adopt
them in any volume. Perhaps this is why some of the larger silver ink/paste makers, who have Page | 9
said that they were going into the nanosilver inks business have never actually done so.

We think that nanosilver firms can and should continue to let potential customers know that
their inks can do extraordinary things, but they need to rein in the hyperbole and focus on the
here and now. As we have noted, nanosilver inks fall into the category of inks that reduce the
amount of silver, and other area where nanosilver inks can stress the practical is in the fact
that they can lower the cost of processing, which in turn can lower expenditures on
substrates.

It may even be possible to continue to message nanosilver inks as an enabler of new kinds of
products, but to tone down the rhetoric. Instead of talking about printing nanosilver
interconnects on flexible OTFTs—a mix of several different futuristic technologies if there ever
was one—the nanosilver ink business might stress niche areas that actually exist and where
nanosilver inks have obvious and immediate competitive advantages. These would certainly
include miniaturized PCBs and some types of capacitors. We discuss such applications in
much more depth in the main body of this report. As we also discuss later, the continuing rise
of silver prices is actually good for the nanosilver inks business, because higher raw silver
prices reduce nanosilver's premium over conventional silver.

Photovoltaics, Thick-Film, Plasma Displays and Lighting: The Applications That Matter

Although there are many applications in which silver inks and pastes can be used,
NanoMarkets believes that only four will matter in terms of revenue generation in the next
eight years. These are the ones listed in the title of this section. Together, these account for
over 95 percent of revenues from silver inks and pastes in each of the years we discuss in this
report.

However, these four applications are expected to move in different directions with regard to
growth. We expect the traditional thick-film market to grow as an economic recovery
proceeds and (as we have hinted above) see some genuine opportunities in this segment. We
also see some moderate size—and growing—opportunities for printed silver in the solid-state
lighting (SSL) sector; a sector that has barely begun to emerge. Plasma displays are a major


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consumer of printed silver, but are in decline as a product; admittedly at a rate much slower
than anyone anticipated.

Perhaps more surprisingly, we see the PV opportunity, which has been played up by some
ink/paste firms as going into decline. It has long been a sizeable segment of the silver inks and Page | 10
pastes business, but has just become the largest segment. But by 2014, traditional thick-film
applications will have overtaken again.

Growth Opportunities for Thick-Film Silver: Are There Any?
We think the thick-film silver market will grow during the period under consideration, but part
of that growth will come from the fact that many traditional sectors that use thick-film pastes
with established manufacturing plants and procedures will find it hard to shift away from
conventional pastes. Absent a really huge increase in silver prices, they will just have to live
with higher-priced pastes. The "growth" in this sector is therefore somewhat illusory in that it
reflects more of a relative lack of shrinkage compared with other sectors that use silver inks
and pastes.

In addition, as we have already mentioned, some real growth can be expected in this sector as
the worldwide economy returns to health. Growth in consumer electronics markets in
particular, means that more PCBs, membrane switches and capacitors will be sold. At the
level of revenues, thick-film applications will generate $1.8 billion in 2011, but by 2016, this
will have risen to $2.1 billion.

Photovoltaics: A Market in Decline?
In a sense, the PV sector represents the converse of the thick-film business in that we expect
this segment of the market to be quite adept at finding new ways to use less silver. In our
judgment, PV is an area where development work has a high chance of success, because,
unlike many of the traditional thick-film sectors, PV is a hotbed of R&D. It is also because
while the consumer electronics, appliance and automotive sectors that consume most of the
thick-film pastes are cost sensitive, products in the PV sector are judged almost entirely on
ROI; so we are talking about not just cost sensitivity but cost criticality.

How a reduction in silver consumption and ink/paste costs works itself out in the PV sector,
however, remains to be seen. It may be an increasing adoption of nanosilver, mixtures of
silver with a cheaper material in ink formulations, or even replacement of silver altogether in
some portions of cells. Total replacement of silver isn't as farfetched as it may seem; silver is
used in several places and only the front electrode fingers demand the highest levels of
conductivity, precision, and thinness. In fact, the c-Si PV industry is already in the process of


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moving away from silver in favor of aluminum for back electrodes and copper-based materials
for tabbing strips.

There are also other opportunities for silver ink and paste firms in the PV space. We expect a
significant increase in the quantity of silver used in the front electrode fingers of c-Si PV cells Page | 11
as their numbers increase and silver penetration remains high. Similarly for the silver grids
sometimes applied on the front of thin-film and organic PV modules; silver will not have a
viable alternative here, and TFPV penetrations will grow.

Also important to silver inks usage in the PV industry is the ongoing trend of thinning the
wafers used to build c-Si PV cells. Brittle silicon becomes more fragile as it is made thinner,
and this will inevitably lead to broken wafers (and lost yields, and equipment downtime) from
contact printing processes. The opportunity here is to develop non-contact printing, almost
certainly inkjet, for printing the electrode fingers onto the fragile wafers, and perhaps the
tabbing strips as well.

We go into more of this in our report. However, the important takeaway here is that while
the overall revenues from silver inks and pastes may decline for the PV sector, there are still
plenty of ways to make money in this sector for ink and paste firms that know where to look.

Opportunities for Silver Inks/Pastes in Lighting and Displays
As we have already noted the trends for silver usage in lighting and displays point in two
different directions. In 2011 we expect plasma displays to consume approximately $600
million in silver inks and pastes making it the third largest sector of the inks/pastes market. By
2016, these revenues will have slipped to around $330 million, although it will still retain its
ranking. By contrast the use of silver inks and pastes in the lighting sector will generate just
$45 million in 2011, almost completely from EL, with this number rising to just over $165
million by 2016, with all of the growth coming from OLED lighting.

As is the case for photovoltaics, there will be the opportunity for plasma display
manufacturers to use less silver and to keep the expense of silver inks and pastes down to
reasonable levels. But this won't be nearly as rapid for plasma displays as it will be for PV.
Plasma displays are already mature in their use of silver and the disruptions to existing
processes—required for qualification—will often not be considered "worth it" for the
potential reductions in ink costs, especially since the entire sector is one that is in decline. We
do foresee some success for thick-film-like nanosilver pastes and note that the few firms that
are producing silver "nanopastes" are specifically targeting plasma.


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By extreme contrast, OLED lighting is the one application covered in this report that provides
the classical kind of business opportunity for silver inks and pastes that has universal appeal to
all suppliers: tremendous growth in consumption, going from next to nothing to half a billion
dollars by the end of the period covered by this report. The opportunity here is clear.
NanoMarkets recommends that silver ink suppliers quickly establish relationships with OLED Page | 12
lighting producers to optimize inks for electrodes and bus bars. The OLED lighting industry is
just getting started and now is the time for the opportunity to begin a supply relationship that
can grow remarkably for the next several years.

Other Opportunities: Sensors, RFID and Transparent Coatings
Sensors and RFID: Silver inks and pastes are materials with very wide applicability and there
are other opportunities for them apart from the ones we focused on in this chapter.
However, it is important that for the most part these are minor in terms of revenues. We
don't expect these other applications—which largely consist of sensors and RFID—to get
much above $200 million by 2016 and when considered in depth, they represent a very
fragmented group of both applications and potential customers for the inks and pastes that
we are concerned with in this sector.

The RFID sector is particularly troublesome as a source of opportunities for silver inks and
pastes at the present time, because of the high price of silver and this is another area where
we have cut back on our expectations from a few years ago.

In last year's report we expressed concern that thick-film silver was not cheap enough to allow
RFID to reach the low cost targets that are so essential to the item-level tagging that is
expected to drive extremely high volumes. Even at that point, it became clear that the
amount of silver paste alone that was used to print an RFID antenna was often worth more
money than the eventual cost target. Now that silver prices have increased over 50 percent
this concern is back with a vengeance and it is even more critical that something be done to
reduce the cost of printing silver antennas for RFID.

But this need also provides opportunities. The opportunity to shift RFID antennas from
conventional thick-film silver to nanosilver is now, in a sense, even greater than it was last
year, because it is now more certain that RFID cannot succeed in reaching its targets without
it. And in this case, it is probably not enough to use nanosilver formulations that are designed
with other applications in mind. For RFID to achieve rock-bottom costs it will be necessary for
nanosilver inks to be developed with cost—and little else—in mind. The opportunity for silver
ink suppliers is to form relationships with RFID manufacturers to develop nanosilver inks, to


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determine how costs can be minimized, and to qualify the low-cost inks for use in RFID
antennas.

For both sensors and RFID, we are talking about users that are large in number and which are
widely distributed geographically; contrast to the plasma display industry, where there are Page | 13
just a few customers for pastes. Thus, in these smaller sectors it is important to find ways to
improve the access that the "little guy" has to silver inks and pastes. This is largely a matter of
marketing and marketing channels, but we also note that some of the ink and paste
companies mentioned in this report have begun to provide offerings for low-cost inkjet
printers that small-volume users will find more appealing than relatively expensive screen
printing equipment. And the same applies to curing equipment; small volume users will pay a
premium for inks that can be cured with simple equipment. That is likely to mean that
nanosilver inks will play an important part in this strategy not just because they are generally
better for inkjet, but also because they can be cured at lower temperatures.

Silver vs. ITO: In our report, we have included a discussion of the new breed of transparent
conductive inks that include silver (typically nanosilver) to enhance conductivity. These are
intended as a replacement for ITO, a rather different opportunity space to the others
considered here and one that we don't expect to see much out of until right at the end of the
forecast period; it won't be until 2018 that the revenues from these materials are expected to
exceed $100 million. In the very long run they may have the potential to change the
transparent conductor substantially, perhaps even making ITO obsolete in some applications.

In the shorter term, the revenues may be enough to keep one or even two small specialist
firms in profitable operation. A couple of new but minor players have entered this space in
the past year, but the "big" development has been that Cambrios has been so aggressive in
developing, qualifying, and marketing its manifestation of this type of film.


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Summary of Silver Inks and Pastes Forecasts by Application

5,000 Thick
Film
4,500 Page | 14
4,000 Sensors
3,500
$ Millions

3,000 RFID
2,500
2,000
SSL
1,500
1,000
500 Displays
0
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 PV

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Additional Reports:

Silver Powders and Flakes - 2011

Silver in Photovoltaics: 2010


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