In 2015, the flexible and printed electronics industry saw more new products either reaching or closing in on commercialization, from temperature sensors for children to “smart wine bottles” and OLED automotive lighting. As these products head toward the market, more brand owners look at ways they can utilize the technology.

TempTraq is one such product. Launched at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show, TempTraq, a spin out of Blue Spark Technologies, is a wearable wireless thermometer in the form of a soft patch. It continuously monitors body temperature for 24 hours, sending alerts via a unique code to Apple or Android compatible mobile devices. TempTraq is available at Amazon.com, Diapers.com and Costco.com, among others.

“Consumers are really loving TempTraq since it’s proving to be a valuable solution to an age-old problem – keeping sick children resting while also providing peace of mind to worried parents,” said Matt Ream, VP marketing, Blue Spark Technologies. “We are in active discussions with all of the major pharma retail outlets and expect to be in ‘brick and mortar’ retailers early Q1 2016. We’ve just completed our first of several clinical trials and are in discussions with a number of hospitals and managed care facilities for the monitoring of temperature. Longer term, we are investigating the addition of other biological sensors to the TempTraq platform. I think TempTraq validates that there is a real market for products integrating printed electronics.”

“Smart bottles” are one of the projects that are underway at Thin Film Electronics (Thinfilm). The company is collaborating with Ferngrove Wine Group and G World on NFC tags to offer proof that products are authentic; G World has issued a seven-figure order for these NFC OpenSense tags.

“As one of Western Australia’s preeminent wineries and a major exporter to China, Ferngrove is dedicated to ensuring the authenticity and quality of our premium wines for our loyal consumers,” said Ferngrove CEO Anthony Wilkes.

In a similar project, Thinfilm is partnering with Diageo for NFC tags for Johnny Walker Blue Label scotch bottles. Diageo recently placed an order for five-figure units for these tags, which have marketing potential, whether it is in the form of offering deals or other communications.

“Mobile technology is changing the way we live, and as a consumer brands company, we want to embrace its power to deliver amazing new consumer experiences in the future,” said Helen Michels, global innovation director, futures team at Diageo. “We constantly experiment with the latest cutting edge technologies to enrich and enhance the experiences delivered by our iconic brands.”

Jennifer Ernst, Thin Film Electronics’ chief strategy officer, said that the market reception to the NFC OpenSense system has been positive.

“We launched this earlier this year in late February just prior to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona,” Ernst said. “Coming out of that event, the market response to NFC OpenSense was tremendous, and since then we’ve been engaging with a growing number of firms – including many leading global brands – across a range of verticals including wine and spirits, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, health and beauty, tobacco and consumer packaged goods.”

Thinfilm is working with Xerox on products using Thinfilm Memory, which Xerox licensed. Xerox will manufacture Xerox Printed Memory labels at its Webster, NY facility.

Patrick de Jong, marketing manager, Xerox Printed Memory, noted that this is the first effort by Xerox to take these products to the market. De Jong said that Xerox Printed Memory is a very small flexible label with a small amount of memory, 4 bit to 36 bits, and its size and flexibility gives it enormous potential for applications. It does not require a battery or a power source, but it does require a reading device to extract the data.

“Two key applications are smart consumables and brand protection,” de Jong said. “Another vertical is the fashion industry. Brand protection is an enormous market. This is ideal for mass usage of millions of items, and it will costs cents rather than dollars. We are very close to bringing it to market.”

PragmatIC Printing has embarked on a number of projects with commercial opportunities, with Cartamundi, the world’s largest playing card and games manufacturing, perhaps the most intriguing. PragmatIC Printing CEO Scott White added that PragmatIC has signed multi-year strategic agreements with three other leading companies.

“They are progressing slowly but surely,” said White. “Our focus is on ensuring that the complete solution is in place and fully proven with the right strategic partners and customers. The PING project is a good example of this – a three-year collaboration involving IMEC and Holst Centre as technology/design partners; PragmatIC to develop and produce the flexible IC; SMARTRAC with experience in antenna printing and tag integration; and then Cartamundi and Van Genechten Packaging as customers with well-defined use cases.”

Marc Lünnemann, OSRAM OLED GmbH’s CEO, discussed the gains being made in the automotive OLED lighting market during a presentation at LOPEC 2015. During Lünnemann’s talk, titled “OLED in Automotive Lighting: Opportunities & Challenges,” he showed the OSRAM demonstrator tail lights, a hybrid of OLED and LED lighting. “Automotive is the first wave for OLEDs,” he noted. “The first OLED application will be on tail lights.” Lünnemann added that interior lighting, stop light indicators and accent lighting are also being developed.

Enfucell has embarked on a biopharma cold chain project with NXP. Anja Talo, sales director, Enfucell Oy, said that temperature loggers based on NXP NHS3100 chip and Enfucell SoftBattery will be commercially available soon.

“The announcements will be made by brand owners,” Talo added. “We expect to see them within the next six months.”

Smart fabrics and wearables are areas of interest for flexible and printed electronics, and BeBop Sensors is making headway in this field. Keith McMillen, founder and CEO of BeBop Sensors, said the idea for BeBop Sensors came out of McMillen’s music company, Keith McMillen Instruments, which focuses on creating and manufacturing electronic music instruments. He added that the market reception to BeBop Sensors is “really quite amazing.

“We are closing deals with numerous top tier companies, often with them reaching out to us for solutions,” McMillen added. “Designers have articulated very precise requirements and it is satisfying to be able to finally bring their projects to fruition.” He noted that several projects will be out in 2016 and beyond. “The integration cycles are industry controlled and since we are working directly with OEMs, their timing is our timing,” McMillen said.

Tangio Printed Electronics, a division of Sytek Enterprises, is a specialist in force sensing resistors. Kirk Hutton, sales and marketing manager for Tangio, said that market reception is going quite well.

“The custom force sensor business continues to accelerate,” Hutton said. “We have had several resellers contact us to showcase our products on their online stores, so that is exciting.” Hutton added that Tangio has two major projects in the works.
Printers are seeing gains being made in the market as well.

“We are definitely seeing a steady stream of projects going from prototype, qualification parts to mass production, particularly in medical devices,” said Jaye Tyler, president/CEO, Si-Cal Technologies Inc. A Nissha Company, “To keep up with the current and future demand, we are installing more equipment and hiring additional staff.”

In May 2015, Molex, a leading manufacturer of printed circuit boards and membrane switches, acquired Soligie, and the company is combining its respective expertise.

“We are seeing more flexible and printed electronics projects moving toward and reaching commercialization,” said Mark Litecky, Soligie Printed Electronics, Molex. “New market applications span many industries, including medical and aerospace and defense. They are also helping to improve connectivity in the Internet of Things.”

In 2014, Sun Chemical and T+Ink formed T+Sun, a partnership focused on conductive inks as well as TouchCode, which allows brand owners to link to the consumer through labels and packaging.

“The T+Sun team is continuing to focus on the successful commercialization of TouchCode,” said Roy Bjorlin, commercial director, Electronic Materials, Sun Chemical. “Touch Code represents a significant step forward in bridging print technology and the digital world. Work is continuing on both the advanced metallizations, such as nano silver, and advanced printing methods, including inkjet, flexo and gravure, to support cost targets as well as process methods.”

“Trends we are seeing in applications from our customers are generally consistent with trends we see in the media regarding consumer interests,” added Stan Farnsworth, VP of marketing at NovaCentrix. “Established applications tend to have faster time-to-production, while emerging applications are also very interesting, as they definitely have the potential to evolve into significant business.”

There are plenty of opportunities ahead for flexible and printed electronics.

“BeBop is pushing the performance capabilities of printed electronics with challenges of high count multiple layers, ink compatibilities, durability in extreme environments and finding the right low cost solution,” McMillen said. “Printed electronics is going to look a lot different in a couple of years.”

“I believe it starts to show the true potential for printed electronics, although we know that the opportunities we are currently focusing on are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of other ideas that prospective customers have been exploring,” White concluded.