With numerous printed electronics (PE) applications reaching commercialization and other concepts nearing market readiness, interest among end-users in the field of PE is growing.

IDTechEx, the organizers of Printed Electronics Europe 2013, which will be held in Berlin, Germany from April 18-19, expect record attendance this year, and are crafting a program that will offer end-users a perspective on the possibilities as well as the realities of PE design and production.

Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx, said that the program has indeed drawn great interest, with major keynote speakers on hand to offer their particular insights.

“Registrations are up on last year and we expect 1,600 to 2,000 attendees. We are delighted with the end user registrations for this event, which is up significantly on previous years so far,” Das noted. “Our keynotes include Microsoft – a world first – what do they have to do with the topic? – come and see! and Abbott, Boeing, Philips and others. Our focus is to present attendees with insight and experiences from end users to help guide their commercialization and development direction.”

As Das mentioned, Dr. Alex Butler, senior research hardware engineer for Microsoft Research, will be speaking the PE Europe 2013 on the topic of “The Future of Touch/Enabling Technologies.” Among the other major speakers are

Dr. Sophie Laurenson, project lead for Abbott Diagnostics, who will offer her insights on “Printed Electronics for the Diagnostics Industry,” an overview of the in vitro diagnostics (IVD) industry; Jeff Duce, design engineer, Boeing Research & Technology, who will analyze “Applications, Needs, and Requirements for Printed Electronics in Aerospace.”

Koen van Os, senior scientist intelligent textiles at Philips Research, will present a talk on “Intelligent Textiles: Bridging the Gap from Technology Development to Product Manufacturing,” an overview of the field of intelligent textiles.

Other major companies on the agenda include Stora Enso Packaging Boards, Panasonic, Total and Applied Materials, while leading PE manufacturers on hand to offer their insights include Thin Film Electronics, Plastic Logic, Peratech Ltd., PST Sensors, Ynvisible and Cambrios. In addition, leading researchers at universities and institutes will also offer their latest innovations.

There has been an emphasis on having manufacturing and product demonstrations to show new attendees what is possible with printed electronics, such as showing actual printed electronics products being produced. Printed Electronics Europe 2013 features more of these presentations.

“We have been working with leaders in the industry to develop a new world-first sample based on printed electronics,” Das said. “All attendees will receive one. This combines several printed electronic components into one device, and to our knowledge, the product has never been made before with these components.

“It is a full integrated system,” Das added. “Indeed, there has been interest for this sample to be used commercially by some of the customers of the companies involved. The sample will be revealed at the event, and the participants will form ‘manufacturing street’ in the exhibition, where they will demonstrate how different parts are made on fully working equipment. In addition, we have ‘demonstration street’ – the world’s largest collection of working printed, flexible and organic electronics products in one place.”

As an added benefit for attendees, IDTechEx has also co-located other events of interest to the printed electronics field:
• Graphene LIVE!, which covers material and process progress of graphene, along with assessing its applications and market opportunity.
• OLEDs LIVE!, which takes a global look at market opportunities, challenges and technical progress for OLEDs.
• TCF LIVE!, an analysis of applications and latest technology developments of transparent conductive films, featuring touch surfaces.
• Energy Harvesting & Storage, which focuses on the progress being made from extracting energy from heat, light, motion, biology, RF and other means to power small devices to vehicles. • 5th Photovoltaics Thin-Film Week, which will cooperate with Printed Electronics Europe 2013. The co-located SolarPraxis and IDTechEx Photovoltaics conference track on April 18 will form an additional part of the thin-film week.

“In terms of content, we have added the events OLEDs LIVE! and TCF LIVE! (among others), which cover two of the hottest aspects of the technology today,” Das noted. “The first covers OLED lighting, displays, materials and manufacture, and the second covers all the applications and latest technology developments of transparent conductive films, featuring touch surfaces. In addition, we have co-located our other major event – Energy Harvesting and WSN Europe alongside, and there is great overlap of topics such as the Internet of Things, wireless charging and ubiquitous sensing.

“These topics overlap somewhat in content – and so by bringing them together attendees can meet everyone in their value chains,” Das noted. “There is huge opportunity also to see how problems in technology and commercialization were addressed by others in similar sectors by seeing their business models and how they addressed challenges.

“Co-locating these relevant events also means more buyers and, in a time when clients choose which events they go to carefully due to time and budget constraints, it presents the most value as all attendees to the conference can access all concurrent sessions and see a range of related technologies, products and buyers in one place,” Das added.

For more information, contact Chris Clare, event director, printed electronics at +44 (0)1223 810270 or by email at [email protected].