With more flexible and printed electronics products appearing in the market and even more on the way, the ability to produce these systems is always more critical. Leading equipment suppliers are reporting they are seeing growth on their end, both with production as well as lab equipment.

“We continue to see a wide range of new products entering the final stages of development, which depend on the application of technologies for flexible and printed electronics fabrication,” Stan Farnsworth, chief marketing officer for NovaCentrix, said. “We’re fortunate to be a technology and product contributor to the efforts of our customers – efforts including automotive, medical equipment and wearables, various textile applications, and of course different consumer electronics applications.”

“This appears to be a category that is showing significant growth, especially in the medical segment, such as pacemakers, heart monitoring equipment, muscle stimulation equipment that use printed circuits as well as diagnostic equipment including glucose monitors, and body temperature monitors,” noted Jay Stromberg, business development, Frontier – a Delta ModTech Company.

“We are working with quite a few large customers in healthcare, defense and consumer electronics,” added Bryan Germann, Aerosol Jet product manager at Optomec. “Rigid substrates are more common than flexible currently, but we are involved in both.”

Sebastian Kraneis, communication & marketing manager, Meyer Burger (Germany) GmbH, observed that for inkjet printing equipment, technically there are no major hurdles for commercialization, but most of the activity they are seeing is in R&D.

“Meyer Burger does already have the established PiXDRO product line, which is widely being employed in the printed electronics market,” Kraneis added. “However, this is mostly in R&D and pilot lines, rather than full production, not because of equipment readiness, but rather because of current ink and process capabilities.”

Mike Gnaegy, VP of marketing and product management for XENON Corporation, added that most of the activity that XENON is seeing is still more in the area of R&D than production scale.

Equipment industry leaders point to automotive and healthcare as strong markets.

“I would say that interest from the automotive community in printed and flexible electronics has been early but interested,” Farnsworth said. “These technologies not only allow interior designers and electronics engineers to re-think the functionality and passenger experience of the vehicle, but they also allow traditionally non-electronics suppliers to get involved in for-them new aspects of vehicle functionality. For example, groups which supply plastic interior or exterior components can offer those components with built-in sensors or lighting.”

“The capability of inkjet being digital, flexible and scalable, allowing quick and easy product adaption and changes, are of high interest in the automotive industry, especially the application of features in the automobile interior such as decoration and displays, but also for lighting, sensors and even for tires there is much inkjet development activity ongoing,” Kraneis reported.

“We did work with a large Tier 2 supplier on LED headlamp heater circuits for deicing those headlights due to poor heat generation from LEDs compared to halogens,” said Germann. “This is not a requirement currently by the IIHS or NTSB; however, if it does become one as safety regulations do tend to take hold sometime after a new technology is introduced, transparent or near transparent heater circuitry on PC lenses may become a large application for us.”

“Healthcare is showing promising results with more and more wearable medical devices,” said Stromberg. “Not only are these devices able to monitor vitals, but they can also transmit information wirelessly, allowing caregivers and patients real-time tracking.”

“We are seeing interesting work on wearable sensors and the integration of flexible electronics in medical devices,” Gnaegy added.

They are also seeing good opportunities in defense and aerospace, display, smart packaging and more. Optomec’s Germann, for example, noted that display looks like it could be a promising emerging market space, mostly in consumer devices.

“We are receiving more and more interest from label printers for smart packaging,” said Gnaegy. “The interest is global in nature.”

“I am looking into the defense industries requirements more closely due to the fact that they are moving more towards internal developments and less outsourcing,” Tim Luong, national sales manager, CERADROP, an MGI Group company, said.

Dave Grenwis, marketing strategist, Delta ModTech, noted that consumer products and safety markets are also showing promise, including printed circuits to light clothing for high visibility outerwear for cyclists, runners, police, rescue and construction workers.

“While much of our customer activity is indeed in the printed and flexible electronics areas, we also have some exciting work in non-electronics applications,” Farnsworth said.

“Drying and other types of thermal processing can also be performed with the PulseForge tools. Learning more about those applications and working with teams that come from different technical areas of expertise is very rewarding.”

Meeting Customers’ Requirements

Working closely with customers is critical in helping them meet their needs, and customizing equipment can be essential for many manufacturers. Luong noted that customers are interested in the capabilities of new equipment, as well as return on investment.

“When groups are looking at purchasing new equipment to allow them to develop printed and flexible electronics technology internally, they want to make a smart decision,” Farnsworth said. “This means the equipment needs to serve their current needs, allow them to explore undetermined future options, and still be economical.

They are also looking for technology providers that have a solid IP basis for the products they will be buying, and world-class expertise for how to integrate the new technologies into their product stream as soon as possible,” Farnsworth added.

“The interest of inkjet to our customers is mostly related to flexibility and enabling smaller devices,” Kraneis said. “But inkjet technology should also be reliable, cost-effective and productive. These areas have our utmost attention when developing new production tools.”

Grenwis said that Frontier – a Delta ModTech Company is seeing more interest in precision slot-die coating and increased interest in total manufacturing solutions.

“Coating by slot-die allows for significant savings in material waste by providing precise coating thicknesses to less than 3 microns,” added Grenwis. “Having the capability to provide both coating and conventional converting in-house opens the doors to total manufacturing line solutions. From a blank substrate to a fully converted and packaged part, manufacturers can now develop their substrates in-house and convert them inline or nearline to the finished and inspected product, reducing risk and eliminating waste.”

Germann said that Optomec’s customers are looking at high volume production. “This brings about mostly custom automation lines for making complete products, wherein we are a critical part of that manufacturing process,” he added.