Macroelectronics are flexible electronics that cover a large area. The most visible example of macroelectronics is

flat-panel display A flat-panel display (FPD) is an electronic display used to display visual content such as text or images. It is present in consumer, medical, transportation, and industrial equipment. Flat-panel displays are thin, lightweight, provide better li ...

s. Other emerging applications include

rollable display A flexible display or rollable display is an electronic visual display which is flexible in nature, as opposed to the traditional flat screen displays used in most electronic devices. In recent years there has been a growing interest from num ...

, printable

thin film solar cell A thin-film solar cell is a second generation solar cell that is made by depositing one or more thin layers, or thin film (TF) of photovoltaic material on a substrate, such as glass, plastic or metal. Thin-film solar cells are commercially use ...

and electronic skin. Flat-panel displays fabricated on glass substrates are fragile so fabricating directly on flexible substrates, such as

polymer A polymer (; Greek ''poly-'', "many" + '' -mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic and ...

s is being explored. Displays made on thin polymer substrates can be more rugged than glass. In September 2005,

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

Polymer Vision revealed the world's first prototype of a rollable electronic reader, which can unfold to a 5-inch display and roll back into a pocket-size (100×60×20 mm) device. Thin-film devices on flexible polymer substrates can lend themselves to low-cost fabrication process (i.e., roll-to-roll printing), resulting in lightweight, rugged and flexible macroelectronic products.

References

Electronics {{Electronics-stub