IntroductionConventional methods for materials processing, such as thin-film deposition and photolithographic patterning provide the foundation for device fabrication in the microelectronics industry. Although these methods are scaleable and cost-effective, as demonstrated in the silicon integrated-circuit (IC) industry, they are not always the most appropriate methods for applications where further miniaturization is not an advantage, such as large-area electronics. Active-matrix liquid-crystal displays (AMLCD) [1], an industry that has grown to a $30 billion dollar business and X-ray imaging [2], another rapidly emerging application for thin-film transistor (TFT) devices are two examples of large-area electronics. Both of these applications rely on the ability to pattern transistor structures over large substrates. Particularly for AMLCD, the cost and difficulty of conventional patterning larger areas has slowed down the introduction of very large-format products. Many new materials systems, based on organic and polymeric semiconductors, are also rapidly being developed to address the intrinsic difficulties of large-area processing. Ideally, these materials are solution-processable, which can enable novel deposition and patterning processes such as jet printing for fabrication of TFT devices.While these polymeric materials hold promise for low-cost electronics and simplified device processing, they still suffer from lower performance than conventional inorganic semiconductors. As the development of these novel materials continues, an alternative technology incorporating patterning schemes such as inkjet printing and conventional vacuum deposited thin films, may provide the required overlap of performance with low-cost fabrication of microelectronic circuits on large-area platforms.In flat-panel display applications, manufacturers reduce production costs by increasing the mother-glass plate size, thus yielding more displays on a single plate of glass using a batch process. Figure 11.1 shows the trend for substrate size as a function of time with the current Generation 7 plate size having an area of 1.8 Â 2.2 m 2 . As the plate size increases in the coming years, it is unclear how Organic Electronics, Materials, Manufacturing and Applications. Edited by Hagen Klauk