Last week’s Printed Electronics USA 2013, held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, featured presentations and exhibits showing the latest gains occurring in the field of printed and flexible electronics. The conference also showed the gains being made in terms of interest in the new technologies.

Show organizer IDTechEx reported major gains in both attendance and exhibitors at PE USA 2013, with 160 exhibiting companies, more than 200 presentations and approximately 2,200 attendees. By comparison, exhibitor attendance grew by more than 50%, and attendance increased by more than 35% from 2012.

The show featured a host of co-located programs, including Graphene LIVE!, OLEDs LIVE!, Energy Harvesting & Storage, 3D Printing LIVE!, Internet of Things and Supercapacitors, which allowed attendees to take in a wide variety of topics.

Raghu Das, IDTechEx’s CEO, said that exhibitors reported they saw plenty of end users in attendance.

“We are very pleased,” Das said. “We had a record number of attendees. We had 160 exhibiting companies, and there are a lot of end users here. Our exhibitors say they are happy.”

Stan Farnsworth, vice president marketing for NovaCentrix, said that NovaCentrix is continuing to see the evolution of the printed electronics community.

“The emphasis in the last couple of years has been one of collaboration, and it has positioned the community to better respond to end use opportunities,” Farnsworth said. “PE USA is a place where different participants of the ecosystem can all come together at once and have meaningful opportunities to discuss how we can address shared opportunities throughout the year.”

“It’s been very positive,” said Darren Bianchi, president of Nanogap USA. “The market place is evolving, and the application discussions we are having are very real. It’s great to see our products in real commercial applications.”

“This conference is an order of magnitude better than we’ve had,” said Lou Panico, CEO of XENON Corporation. “We have a strong sense that people are putting a lot of energy into the printed electronics field.”

“The show has been very good,” noted Josh Goldberg, marketing specialist, Taiyo America, Inc. “There’s been a lot of growth, and by adding other shows such as 3D Printing, the conference is increasing capacity.”

Terry Kaiserman, chief technical officer for T-INK, said that T-INK had an excellent show. “We picked up some additional contacts and met with many of our current customers,” he added.

“It’s been busy,” said Paul Lindquist, business development manager at Methode Electronics. “By the end of the first day, we had 20% more leads than last year.”

Nicolas Bernardin, deputy managing director and co-fonder of Ceradrop, said the show was very exciting for Ceradrop, which was recently acquired by the MGI Group.

“We got a lot of exciting contacts with concrete needs and specific requirements,” Bernardin said.

“It’s been a good show for us, with a lot of new companies we’ve never seen before,” said Brooks Kincaid, co-founder and head of business for Imprint Energy.

“It’s been very busy,” said Kevin Buermann, program manager for Multek. “The first day was phenomenal.”

“The show has been very good,” said John Lettow, president of Vorbeck Materials. “”There is a lot of positive interest here,”

“This has been an amazing show,” said Jennifer Ernst, Thin Film Electronics’ executive vice president, sales and business development. “We are seeing a big uptick, and it seems that interest in printed electronics is increasing.”

Second Day Presentations

The closing session on Nov. 21 featured a total of nine concurrent sessions for attendees to select from, and there were a wide range of topics.

Tracks 1 and 4 are focused on Printed Electronics, with Track 1 covering Printed Electronics Manufacturing, Printing for Consumer Electronics, R2R Manufacturing, Breakthroughs in Conductive Inks and Copper Inks.

Track 4 focused on Sensors, Stretchable and Textile Electronics, Electronic Skin and Electroactive Polymers.

“Billions of test strips are used every year for diabetes monitoring,” said Dr Guillaume Chansin, technology analyst for IDTechEx. “These are single use, disposable and have a sub-dollar price point. We are now reaching the point where printed temperature sensors for smart labels are at price below 50 cents a piece.”

Dr. Jeff Baker, chief technology officer at Interink Electronics, discussed “Printed Force Sensors – an Untold Success Story of Printed Electronics,” including the use of these sensors in products such as the first generation of XBox game controllers and automotive products.

“Our Polymeric Force Sensors are printed, which gives them the advantages of printed electronics, such as being thin, flexible and cost effective,” said Dr. Baker. “We’ve been doing this for 25 years, and there are many applications, some with very high volume.”

In his talk, “When Printed Electronics Meet Design and Usages for Highly Innovative Functionalities,” Laurent Jamet, ISORG co-founder, director business development, discussed ISORG’s progress, as well as its plans to expand in 2015.

“We design and manufacture organic photodetectors for industrial, medical and consumer companies,” Jamet said. “We are producing these photodetectors on PET through sheet-to-sheet screenprinting.”

Track 2, OLEDs LIVE, covered topics such as OLEDs Materials Development, Quantum Dot Displays, Barrier Technologies, Bi-Stable Displays and Printed Electronics Devices and Developments.

TCF LIVE! analyzed the field of transparent conductive films, for Track 3, with topics such as Transparent Conductive Films – Metal Mesh, Touch Screen and ITO Replacement with Graphene, Metal Nanowires and Organic Transparent Films.

Track 5 was 3D Printing LIVE!, covering Applications, Functional 3D Printing, Technology Developments and Desktop Printing.

Prof. Michael McAlpine, Department of MAE at Princeton University, discussed “3D Printed Bionic Nanomaterials,” in which he covered the work his team did on printing an ear, which can sense electromagnetic waves as opposed to acoustic.

Harvard University Prof. Jennifer Lewis covered “Batteries and 3D Printing,” and showcased a host of new applications, such as the Soft Sensor Glove.

“We have developed a broad material palette for 3D printing, and have designed functional inks,” Prof. Lewis said. “We are working to transition from prototype to manufacturing advanced materials.”

During his talk on “The Windows 3D Print Pipeline,” Dr. Emmett Lalish, mechanical engineer, Microsoft Startup Business Group, spoke about Microsoft’s work in the 3D printing field.

“I think we will see the printing of food and ceramics within a few years,” Dr. Lalish said. “We can do a lot with regards to quality, speed and usability.”

Track 6, Graphene LIVE!, discussed Graphene Inks and Composites and Coatings, CNT and Graphene TFTs and Graphene Production and Applications. Additional tracks covered Energy Harvesting & Storage, Internet of Things and Supercapacitors.