Solvay and Thinfilm Enter Commercial Agreement

Solvay Solexis (Solvay) will begin to market its newly developed Solvene polymer for applications in printed electronics with its partner Thin Film Electronics ASA.

Thinfilm and Solvay started a collaboration, in 2007, in the field of polymer printed memories, with the goal to optimize Solvay’s ferroelectric polymer materials to enhance the performance of Thinfilm’s memory technology.

“Memory will be a crucial component in the rapidly growing printed electronics market, which is fuelled by new applications. Our partnership with Solvay paves the way for the next generation of printed electronic applications and high volume production of Thinfilm Memory. As we ramp up production with our manufacturing partners, the agreement with Solvay assures commercial supply of memory polymer in large quantities,” says Rolf Åberg, CEO Thinfilm. “Furthermore, this unique polymer composition will make it possible for other companies in Printed Electronics to begin production of Thinfilm Memory.”

“Solvay has identified printable organic electronics as an area of growth that undoubtly will be pushed by the need for more information, everywhere and anytime, of our modern Society. Thinfilm’s innovative technology in printed electronics, gives us an excellent partner in such a quickly emerging field,” says Pierre Joris, Managing Director of Solvay Solexis. “As leader in specialty polymers, Solvay Solexis has experience and know how about developing and producing the sophisticated material solution needed for such applications, which eventually will benefit our customer base.”

Thinfilm’s technology is based on using a ferroelectric polymer as the functional memory material sandwiched between two sets of electrodes. A key competitive advantage of Thinfilm’s memory technology is that it is fully printable in high volume roll-to-roll machines.

The jointly developed polymer formulation leverages both Solvay’s and Thinfilm’s intellectual property. Solvay is a world leader in fluoromaterials with more than 4,200 registered patents, while Thinfilm has 15 years of experience and over 100 patents in the field of non-volatile memories using functional polymers.