The components in microelectronics and information and communication technologies make extreme demands of the materials used in terms of purity and absence of defects. Continuous miniaturization and structural size reduction spell out greater requirements for material development in such fields as dielectrics with an extremely small or large dielectric constant. 

The demand for continually reducing the space and power required for data storage and processing combined with wireless communication mean there is a cornucopia of new potential applications subsumed under the headings of »ubiquitous computing «, »wearable computing« or »smart living«. Their hallmark is decentralized and self-sufficient functions that are also interactive, among them applications integrated into the immediate human environment (clothing), in household appliances, packaging for food or machines for performing a variety of services. 

The limitations of »classical« Si-technology become evident very quickly since the natural brittleness impairs applications that need to be very flexible in such things as clothing. Granted, extremely thin Siwafers are elastic, but they also require timeconsuming processing techniques for production, putting their costs out of all proportion for mass production. 

Soaring growth rates are forecast for polymer electronics in the coming years in such applications. It has already been demonstrated that they can be used efficiently for simple circuits, although a great deal of development work remains to be done in terms of speed of switching processes and ageing. The foremost requirement is ensuring quasi-hermetic protection for the active elements with barrier junctions and encapsulation materials that will be polymers again. 

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