By David Savastano

Printed Electronics USA 2014 closed its doors after a successful two-day conference at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. IDTechEx, the conference organizer, estimated that approximately 3,000 attendees were on hand, a new record for attendance, with 200 exhibitors and a total of 210 presentations to select for information.

“The show has grown significantly this year, with approximately 3,000 attendees,” IDTechEx CEO Raghu Das said. “We are seeing a great deal of discussion between technology users, developers and exhibitors. Feedback from exhibitors has been really good.”

There were numerous highlights form Day 2’s nine concurrent sessions, but perhaps the most interesting from the perspective of the possibilities and the challenges facing printed electronics (PE) came from the End User Forum, which featured four international companies with more than $200 billion in annual sales – The Boeing Company, United Technologies, Decathlon and Jaguar Land Rover – which either use or may use flexible or printed electronics.


The Boeing Company uses printed electronics as a damage control sensor on its 747-8 airplane. Jeff Duce, R&D design engineer at The Boeing Company, noted that PE can help reduce weight and cost. “Cost is not a driver for us,” he added.

“Development time is much longer, but for the application we had, the need had to be taken care of,” Duce said. “We were able to use printed electronics, and integrated it into the processes that we have. It was the only technology that could meet our requirements.”

Sameh Dardona, senior research scientist for United Technologies, noted that United Technologies does use printed electronics systems.

“We use printed electronics for elevators and escalators, and have successfully inserted PE into these businesses,” Dardona said. “We see printed devices in temperature sensors, pressure gauges. This could enable low cost, seamless integration. There are more opportunities for PE in the next two to three years, such as with printed heating circuits.”

Antoine Ravise, innovation manager at Decathlon, said that his company actually had worked up a successful PE prototype for smart textiles, but it was ahead of its time.

“We built a prototype of printed electronics, but it was too new,” Ravise said. “Printed electronics offers the opportunity to design things better, and can help our company become carbon neutral.”

The speakers noted that there are areas where flexible and printed electronics need improvements. Duce pointed to conductivity.

“One big hurdle is conductivity,” Duce noted. “We always want better conductivity. Size is also an issue, as we want very large parts for some applications.”

“For smart textiles, we need encapsulation and wearability as well as an energy harvesting system,” Ravise said. “We need a good battery.”

“Adhesion is one challenge for aerospace,” Dardona said. “It can’t peel of or delaminate. More types of inks, such as alloyed inks, would be good.”

Ashutosh Tomar, principal engineer, research for jaguar Land Rover, said that the company has bee looking into printed electronics.

“The low hanging fruit would be heating and sensors inside the vehicle,” Tomar said. “Outside would be difficult, as it would require more testing. If there is a problem with adhesion it would be quite problematic. The process would take a minimum of three years.”

Exhibitors, Attendees Reactions

The conference sessions and the trade show floor were active throughout the two days, and exhibitors and attendees alike found good things at Printed Electronics USA 2014.

Tim Luong, national sales manager for Ceradrop, said that 2014 is a larger show than previous years.

“We are seeing a positive trend,” Luong said. “We have seen very high traffic, which we see as due to our commitment to the industry, as we our willing to bring live demonstration equipment.”

“It’s been good – we have developed good opportunities coming out of this,” noted Dr. Allen Reid of NANOGAP.

“As an exhibitor for many years, we are very pleased to see growth in the market,” Darren Bianchi, NANOGAP USA’s president, said. “The applications in development are very impressive.”

“We have seen an increase in customers stopping by,” Thomas Kolbusch, vice president of Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH, said. “We had 30% more contacts on the first day than last year. I think these co-located shows are helping these industries grow together.”

“On the first day we noticed a lot of people walking around, and the second day they came by to discuss what they had seen,” Dr. Kai Baer, managing director of Adphos Digital Printing GmbH, said.

“Traffic has been good,” added John Palazzolo, director of marketing and sales for Adphos North America. “We even have had a walk-up sale.”

“My impression is that it has been very positive on a couple of fronts,” said Michael Gnaegy, Xenon Corporation’s vice president of global sales. “There have been a lot of hard projects being discussed here.”

Attendees also spoke highly of Printed Electronic USA 2014. John Jilek Jr., vice president sales and marketing, inksolutions, LLC, said it was his first PE USA conference.

“This is the first time I attended this show,” Jilek said. “It is interesting and informative. I am interested to see where this will all go.”

“The talks were informative. It’s always good to learn new things,” said Gregg Grabacki, vice president – operations for General Press Colors.

“Each year gets better,” Jaye Tyler, president and CEO of Si-Cal Technologies, Inc. “There are more exhibitors, with more inks and screen exhibitors.”