Electronics such as membrane switches have been screenprinted for decades, and a few of these printers have branched out into the field of printed electronics.
 
One success story is Sytek Enterprises Inc., a North Vancouver, BC manufacturer of membrane switches, graphic overlays, labels and gaskets. The 33-year-old company saw an opportunity to expand into the field of printed electronics, and launched Tangio Printed Electronics eight years ago.
 
Tangio Printed Electronics, a division of Sytek Enterprises, is focused on R&D of printed electronics, particularly force sensing resistors, and the company has enjoyed much success in the field.
 
“Tangio is built on a 30-year-old foundation in screenprinting electronics,” said Kirk Hutton, sales and marketing manager for Tangio. “Over the past eight years, we have specialized in printing force sensing resistors.
 
Its experience in printing unique projects is one key to Tangio’s success with producing force sensors, as is its proprietary polymer ink.
 
“Our differentiation is in our unique skillset in printing rare and unusual designs, and our familiarity with new and interesting materials,” Hutton noted. “At Tangio, we feel that we can never be caught standing still. We respond to our customers’ needs, quite often anticipating what they will ask for next. Our customers look to us to be able to do things that our competitors cannot. It is a combination of continued high quality production and manufacturing components for novel applications. It is low tolerance work, but that’s where we play well.”
 
Much of the manufacturing happens at Tangio/Sytek facilities in North Vancouver, and the company has connections with partners for larger projects.
 
“For larger quantity, price-sensitive projects, we utilize our long-standing relationships with manufacturing partners in Asia,” Hutton said. “We typically do a lot of R&D and rapid prototyping at our facility here in North Vancouver, and then train our contract manufacturers to build production quantities for global distribution.”
 
Force sensors are an important opportunity for printed electronics, and it is one where Tangio has developed a sizable position, particularly in musical instruments.
 
“The key markets Tangio Printed Electronics serves really revolves around the popularity and adoption of force sensors as a human-machine interface enabler,” said Hutton. “We see some of the biggest adoption and business from musical instrument manufacturers. Force sensors in musical instruments allow musicians to express three-dimensional input into their electronic instrument, much like (and more than) what they are able to with a natural instrument like a guitar or piano. By three-dimensional, I mean position (x and y) and depth (z).
 
“Some manufacturers like Roger Linn (www.rogerlinndesign.com) use this depth of expression for various outputs such as pitch bend, timbre, oscillation and vibrato.  Other manufactures, like Intuitive Motion (www.zboardshop.com), use depth of expression as a variable accelerator and brake on their motorized longboard.”
 
Hutton noted that Tangio also has developed products for consumer electronics that are in the market.
 
“In addition to our popularity in musical instrument manufacturing circles, we are also making headway in consumer electronics,” he said. “We can’t reveal customer names in this industry, but there are millions of consumer electronics devices in use in the world today that started out as a Tangio force-sensing prototype. We are also seeing some growth in industrial and healthcare applications for our force sensors. It seems that the more we can get the word out about our capabilities, the sooner engineers and inventors will find applications for the technology.”
 
Hutton foresees tremendous opportunities ahead for force sensors.
 
“We see a very exciting time ahead as we continue to innovate in the world of force sensors,” Hutton said. “We have some product innovations that we cannot announce yet, but they’ll turn customers’ expectations on their head… product features that no one thought was possible… and we will be the only manufacturer able to produce them.
 
“It is exciting times, particularly with three-dimensional touch sensing (three dimensions being the standard X and Y of capacitive touchpads and screens, but now also the z-axis representing the ‘depth’ of touch on a touchpad or screen) coming to the forefront of consumer expectations,” he added. “The assumption is that ‘force touch’, the name Apple has given to their force sensing technology in the Apple Watch, the new Macbook, and rumored to be in the new iPhone, will become the new standard by which all other touch interactions are measured. The new standard may be three dimensional touch, and that’s what we design and print, all day long.”