LOPEC 2017 completed the first day of its Technical and Scientific Conferences yesterday, with a record number of exhibitors and plenty of new applications and technologies to discuss.
 
Wolfgang Mildner, LOPEC general chair and founder and CEO of MSW, said that there are 154 exhibitors this year, a new high, as well as a new record for exhibition space. All told, the conference has 182 presentations scheduled. He added that this bodes well for the continued growth and commercialization of flexible and printed electronics.
 
Henri Rajbenbach, project officer and senior expert, European Commission for Communications Networks, Content & Technology, covered “EU Programs for Large Area Electronics: From Research to Innovation Funding.” He noted that the EC has supported 77 projects with €344 million in funding in recent years.
 
“Europe is listening, and Europe is talking about large area electronics,” said Rajbenbach. “Electronics are becoming the nuts and bolts of the digital transformation.” He added that the latest plans are for the EC to continue to examine electronic smart systems, large area electronics and unconventional nanoelectronics.
 
Samsung SVP Dr. Sang Yoon Lee analyzed “Printed Electronics in Korea and Future Prospect of Organic Electronics.” He discussed Samsung’s efforts as well as Printed Electronics Total Solutions (PETS), Korea’s national program for printed electronics.
 
One of the areas that Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) is working with printed electronics is on organic semiconductors, including OLED materials. Organic photodiodes and organic thin film transistors (OTFT) are also being developed by SAIT. Meanwhile, OETS is developing a range of products, including OLED lighting, additive processes for TFT backplanes and active wallpaper.
 
“The OLED market is already strong,” said Dr. Lee. “Applications such as biosensors, wearables and automotive are emerging. Printed electronics is an innovative process that can expand to different applications.”
 
Heliatek GmbH CEO Thibaud Le Séguillon closed the Plenary Session with his presentation, “BiOPV – Building Integrated OPV.”
 
“We enable BIOPV, which has an urban fit, is decarbonized and provides decentralized energy,” said Le Séguillon. “With HeliaFim, we have fast roll-to-roll manufacturing of organic solar films. We can now offer numerous colors, including blue, green and grey, with 6% efficiency.”
 
Le Séguillon reported that the company recently completed an €82 million investment round, much of which will go to its new manufacturing tool that will increase production capacity to one million square meters annually. The company is now testing HeliaFilm on steel, glass, plastic and concrete.
 
LOPEC 2017 then offered three series of four concurrent sessions, with two each from the Technical Conference and Scientific Conference.
 
In the morning Technical Conference session on Energy, Heliatek GmbH CTO Dr. Martin Pfeiffer and Prof. Dr. Pim Groen of Holst Centre and Solliance offered their insights into solar technology. Dr. Pfeiffer said that Heliatek has reached 8.2& efficiency, and is targeting more than 10% with its new triple junction stack.
 
“Our new production tool is designed for triple junctions with efficiencies greater than 10%,” he said.
 
Meanwhile, Solliance is working with perovskite for its solar cells, reaching greater than 12% recently. “This offers high potential,” Groen said. “It is high efficiency at low cost. The concerns are scalability, reliability and toxicity, but we can make perovskite using roll-to-roll processes.”
 
Dr. Chun-Hao Tu, manager Advanced Device Research Center, AU Optronics, discussed organic thin film transistors (OTFT) during the Functional Materials program. Dr. Tu noted that OTFTs are finding roles in flexible, rollable and bendable displays as well as smart tags.
 
In the Touch, Tactile and Haptic Feedback session, Bob Mackey, director of biometric architecture for Synaptics, offered his insights into fingerprint sensors.  
 
“Today, almost all fingerprint sensors use capacitive touch, but optical and acoustic touch are coming,” Mackey said. “With infinity displays, which are bezel-free, the fingerprint sensor is in the display. Optical sesnors can sense through the glass.”
 
Mackey said that printed electronics could play a role. “Printed electronics could drive costs down, and decoration could be added by printing,” Mackey noted.
 
Biomedical Applications is a major area for printed electronics and Dr. May Wheeler, scientist, Cambridge Display Technology Ltd., and Dr. Steven Setford, director, Strip Development, Johnson & Johnson, Diabetes Care Companies offered their thoughts on this market  
 
Dr. Wheeler discussed the research being done by Cambridge Display Technology and Abingdon Health on lateral flow testers.

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“Lateral flow tests primarily detect the presence of acolyte using an integrated OLED/organic photo detector (OPD) transducer,” said Dr. Wheeler. “Conductive gold materials match up well with green OLED transmission. It is rapid, at 10 to 15 minutes for tests, and opens the opportunity for multiplexing using a number of test strips.
 
Setford noted Johnson & Johnson sell more than five billion of its Select Plus and Ultra glucose test strips annually. He added that glucose sensors reach better than 99.5% accuracy, meeting the ISO 15017:2015 standard, but costs remain an issue.
 
 “We need lower cost input materials, more efficient and faster proceses and less waste,” Setford said. “Future systems will need new materials and process to reach design and manufacturing goals.”
 
The Smart and Hybrid Systems session featured Francisco Melo, VP/GM Global RFID, Avery Dennison; Prof. Douglas Hackler, president and CEO, American Semiconductor, Inc.; TactoTek CTO Prof. Antti Keränen;  Optomec, Inc. CTO Dr. Michael Renn; and Steven Bagshaw, business development manager, CPI.
 
Melo spoke about Avery Dennison’s Born Digital platform.
 
“With Born Digital, we create a unique digital ID, which allows for increased supply chain visibility, higher levels of accuracy and support, increased rad protection and loss prevention and the foundation of a brand owner media channel,” said Melo. “With flexible electronics, you could see this on the item level.”
 
“The real opportunity is post purchase consumer experience,” Melo added. “Brands can continue the conversation with the customer post purchase.”
 
Chaney defined flexible hybrid electronics as “combining printed electronics with silicon content.” He noted that American Semiconductor’s new Flex-SoC is a programmable System-on-Chip, with a 32KB non-volatile memory.
 
Antti Keränen, CTO of TactoTek, showcased the company’s Injection Molded Structural Electronics (IMSE) solutions.
 
“With Injection Molded Structural Electronics, you can make your product smart,” Keränen said. Using IMSE, TactoTek prints wires and sensors on a flat film, which is then preformed and then goes through the in-mold process.
 
“IMSE is lightweight and offers design freedonw,” Keränen said. “Scalability is easily attainable, and it provides improved antenna performance as the electrodes are very close to the surface. We reduce a part that weighs a kilogram down to 160 grams, and the total cost is very affordable.”
 
Optomec’s Renn noted that the company has more than 300 installations to date. He discussed the types of metals used for conductive inks.
 
“Siler, copper and gold are the best conductors,” Renn said. “ However, silver isn’t really stretchable. The problem with copper is it forms oxides when it heats up.” Renn added that the Optomec has had success with copper-nickel alloys, as well as demonstrating stretchable ICs.
 
Bagshaw talked about CPI’s efforts with its Inkjet Flex equipment.
 
“There is a lot of demand for low cost, high volume production of flexible lighting, displays and PV, machine-to-machine communication devices and the Internet of Things,” Bagshaw observed. “Roll-to-roll is the key to overcoming the challenges of high-scale production. We are gaining traction in automotive aerospace, printing and packaging, buildings, lighting and healthcare.”