As always with emerging technologies, it's been more than interesting lately to watch the institutional alignments developing along the line of printable electronics, and there's much more to come. This past month's addition to the ongoing drama was the announcement of a hands-across-the-water team-up between Konarka in the U.S. and Toppan Forms in Japan: the former a photovoltaic technology company, the latter a printing firm.

The Konarka-Toppan partnership is another of those classic relationships of the contemporary electronics world, with the technology of the West traveling to the East for volume manufacturing. This, in turn, gives the technology credibility for use in high-volume consumer products. As in other cases, the big brother in Asia here, Toppan Forms, also provides technology enhancement, especially in terms of manufacturability and related technologies, and it provides long-established sales relationships and channels, as well.

Konarka Technologies Inc., which is located in Lowell at the northwest corner of old Massachusetts High Tech corridor, is a specialist in printed plastic solar cells, which the company is targeting at portable devices and architectural materials. Tokyo-based Toppan Forms Co. Ltd. is the company within printing-giant Toppan Printing Co. Ltd. that is responsible for business forms, RFID and smart card devices and equipment, as well as certain kinds of printing services. The company is on an ongoing quest to transform itself from a paper-based business forms company into an integrated information management services firm.

The agreement signed by Toppan Forms and Konarka is a very broad one, focusing on accelerating the commercialization of Konarka's organic photovoltaic technology, and covering development, manufacturing and commercialization issues. Konarka's technology is based on polymer materials and carries the marketing moniker Power Plastic.

According to Rick Hess, president and CEO of Konarka, the Toppan partnership is a "key" commercialization milestone. That's clear. The need is also clear, according to Toppan Forms president and CEO Masanori Akiyama, for "an ever-present power technology that can be integrated with pervasive networked devices for information collection and distribution," and he labeled Power Plastic "transformational."

While Toppan Forms is helping to iron out any wrinkles in Power Plastic, it is also working on commercializing a complementary display technology, specifically the Microcup® electrophoretic display (EPD) technology licensed from SiPix Imaging of Fremont CA.

At the same time, Toppan Forms' parent Toppan Printing has been a close collaborator of E Ink and its competing EPD technology since 2001, playing big brother and more to this Massachusetts-based technology developer. Corporate Toppan has also been a close collaborator of Cambridge Display Technology in the U.K. and an enabler of that firms polymer-based organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology. (Sumitomo Chemical's intent to purchase CDT was announced in July.)

Printable displays and printable photovoltaics are two of the three legs of a tripod that can support products that have truly been emancipated from the tyranny of the AC power plug. The third is the printable battery. With the implementation of its new Konarka relationship, Toppan now has two of the three legs in place.