Most of these devices do not require high performance semiconductors. They represent a new class of semiconductors. The inside coating of potato chip bags or the metallization of Mylar balloons are two examples. A more common example is your morning newspaper. Some of these products are then incorporated into other products, such as the coated films that are sandwiched into car windshields or house windows to block harmful rays from the sun.
Web processing allows for major savings in production costs.
Anyone who has changed an ink cartridge on most ink-jet printers has seen the clear plastic strip attached to the moving ink cartridge assembly. Today companies such as Sheldahl and 3M make flex circuits with features as small as 25 microns in width, on both sides of the substrate, with thousands of interconnecting vias between the two sides. In that year, Stanford R. Ovshinsky patented a system that allowed photovoltaic solar panels to be manufactured in continuous rolls 1000 feet in length. The 21 st century is witnessing another turn of the wheel. Rolltronics is taking the feature size of its electronic components down to a much smaller dimension.