Exhibitors also report that the PE industry is growing. “From a ‘nano’ perspective it has never been more buoyant,” said Darren Bianchi, president of Nanogap USA. “Opportunities are more concrete than ever and real progress is being made.
Josh Goldberg, marketing specialist, Taiyo America, Inc., said that the state of the industry is encouraging.
“There have been some companies that have made great steps towards purely printed devices,” Greenberg added. “Most encouraging is the adaptation of hybridized systems for device manufacture. I think in the near future for the industry, we will see more companies taking this approach to produce more immediately marketable devices.”
To meet the needs of end users, NovaCentrix announced its new contract printing service.
“We have had a number of clients come to us asking for our help in taking their unit production to higher levels,” said Stan Farnsworth, vice president marketing for NovaCentrix. “We made the decision to help them, by offering a range of print services from small-volume inkjet and screen, all the way to our new 20-inch, 9-station screen and flexographic press capable of hundreds of feet per minute. The printing press is still coming on-line, and we expect full availability early next year.”
Presentations
Raghu Das, IDTechEx’s CEO, opened the Keynote Session with his talk on "Printed Electronics: Show Me the Money!" Das predicted that the PEmarket will grow to $80 billion by 2023, as companies "create products that peopledon;t know that they need."
Scott Sloss, principal engineer - Core Science and Engineering, Lifescan - a Johnson & Johnson Company, offered his thoughts on "Printed Electronics in the Multi Billion Dollar Diagnostics and Healthcare Market." Lifescan produces the OneTouch line of blood glucose test strips.
Sloss noted that the Ultra line, which came out in 2001, is screenprinted using carbon ink, a reagent ink, adhesives and lamination. Lifescan has sold five billion of the Ultra strips. The Vero line, which launched in 2010, is slot coated with a reagent ink and die coated.
"We will need new inks that are more printable and that we can control the thickness of," Sloss said. "We are also looking at new processes that can print smaller track sat higher resolution with improved drying speed."
"Printed Optics: Displays, Sensors, and Illumination for Future Interactive Objects and Devices” was presented by Dr. Karl Willis, principal research engineer, Autodesk Consumer Group.
"3D printing can revolutionize everything that we make," Willis said.
Mike Lu, director OLED technology, Acuity Brands Lighting, analyzed "New Developments in OLED Lighting."
"We are making pretty luminaires with OLEDs," Lu said. "These are personal, interactive and intelligent. The average user will place value on lighting, and OLEDs are ideal for that."
Dr. Marc Vermeersch, solar technology and strategy - senior advisor for Total, discussed "Chances of Success for Organic PV in the Dominancy of Crystalline Silicon."
"The solar market is in the consolidation/mature phase,"Dr. Vermeersch said. "The solar crisis was driven by overcapacity."
Dr. Vermeersch said that organic photovoltaics (OPV) have "wonderful attributes."
"They are flexible, lightweight, have creative form facotrs and colors," he said. "In terms of production, OPV is a promising technology. If we can work on durability and transferring from lab scale to manufacturing, OPV is attractive. However, it would not be a good strategy for OPV to compete with traditional crystalline silicon."The End User Forum followed the break. The panelists included Scott Stanley, Procter & Gamble; Antoine Ravise, DECATHLON; Jeff Duce of Boeing and Scott Demarest of Colgate-Palmolive.
"We believe that there is a need for more functionality that consumers may not even be aware of yet," Demarest said. "The question is finding the right applications."
Dr. Thomas Wehlus, senior R&D manager, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors GmbH, followed the End User Panel with his talk on "OLED Development at OSRAM: Achievements, Trends and Perspectives."
"OLED lighting is reality,"Dr. Wehius said. "The question is when the market will come. Meanwhile, panel efficiency and lifetime has to improve. OLED has the potential for a bright future in lighting."
Jin-Woo Han of NASA closed the Keynote Session with "Carbon Nanotube Based Printed Electronics."
"Carbon nanotubes are a backbone material," Han said. "Sensors will be the most viable application for printed electronics."
After lunch, the conference broke into five concurrent sessions. Track 1 focused on Printed Electronics, covering Wearable Electronics, Bio-Electronics and Healthcare and Smart Labels and Packaging.
Wearable Electronics was the topic of Dr. Joan Vrtis, senior director, Interconnect Technology Center for Flextronics, who discussed "Printed Electronics Use in Wearable Products."
In the field of Bio-Electronics and Healthcare, Dr. Gordon Smith, GSI Technologies LLC chief technology officer, analyzed "Commercial Printed Electronic Device for Flow Cytometry." Dr. Jonathan Rivnay, post-doc fellow at Microelectronics Center of Provence, covered "Conducting Polymer Devices for Neural Interfacing." University of Cincinnati Prof. Jason Heikenfeld discussed "Wearable and Non-Invasive Patches for the Next Leap in Digital Heath: Multi-Biomarker Access and Sensing."
"There is a lot we can do with screenprinting," Dr. Smith said.
During the session on Smart Labels and Packaging, Joao De Oliveira, vice president business development for PragmatIC Printing, covered "Printed Electronics, from Prototyping to Volume Production." Thin Film Electronics CEO Dr. Davor Sutija analyzed "Printed Sensor Tags and Smart Objects," and the coming need to provide wireless sensors on billions of products.
"Our roadmap of new product applications includes smart packaging, interactive advertising, brand enhancement and protection, security and authentication and toys and games," De Oliveira said.
"The Internet of Everything is an important megatrend. Predictions by IBMand Cisco range from 50 billion to one trillion systems being connected to the Internet by 2020," Sutija said, adding that Thin Film uses gravure and slot die coating to produce its sensors.
Dr.. Janos Veres, area manager, PARC, a Xerox company, offered insights on "Smart Labels Progress - From Tipping Point to Reality." T-Ink’s Andrew Ferber and Terry Kaiserman then discussed "T-Ink's Evolution in Printed Electronic Commercialization from Toys to Aerospace."
Track 2 covered Photovoltaics, beginning with Paula Mints, founder of Solar PV Market Research, who offered insights into "Global Markets for PV Technologies 2013 - 2017." Francois Barreau, Armor’s marketing manager/business development, discussed "OPV, an Industrial Reality," a look at the Beautiful Light Project.
"OPVis not easy," Barreau said. ""There has been no commercial successes so far, but it offers flexibility, lightness and the ability to see through. OPVis an important reality."
Dr. Jacek Jasieniak, project leader nanostructured inorganic solar cell, CSIRO, covered "Solution Processing of Inorganic and Organic Solar Cells." Dr. Maikel van Hest, senior scientist at NREL, focused on “Research with Printed Metals and PV Materials.”
Dr. Monica Davis, manager, business development, EMD Chemicals, covered "High Efficiency, High Performance Organic Semiconductors for Display and Sensing Applications." Dyesol USA CEO Marc Thomas offered his insights into "Third Generation Solar Technology: Transforming Buildings into Power Plants with DSC."
Dr. Robert J Visser, senior director, Advanced Technology Group, Applied Materials, analyzed "Printing for Solar Cells." Dr. Scott Hammond, principal scientist, New Energy Technologies Inc. then closed the Photovoltaics session with his talk on “Transparent Contacts for Semi-Transparent Organic Photovoltaic Devices.”
"Screenprinting of crystalline silicon cells will continue to be ideal for manufacturing smaller feature sizes in the future," Dr. Visser said.
"OPVhas potential opportunities in building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) and building applied photovoltaics (BAPV)," Dr. Hammond said.
Track 3, OLEDs LIVE! began with four speakers covering OLED vs. LED Lighting, beginning with Dr. Takuya Komoda. R&D Planning Office, Eco Solutions Company, Panasonic, who offered insights into "High-Efficiency White OLED with Build-up Light Extraction Substrate Technology (BLES) for Lighting Application."
Dr. Andreas Sandström, CTO of Umea University of Sweden (LunaLEC), covered "The LEC, a Low-Cost Alternative to the OLED."
Vachik Javadian, Americas FAE director, Cree Components, discussed "LEDs and OLEDs Coexist and Excel in Different Applications." Konica Minolta manager Toshiyuki Matsumura presented a talk on "A Novel Highly Conductive Printed Electrode for Large-area OLED Lighting.”
The topic of OLED Displays was analyzed by Dr. Fredrik Jakobsson, senior scientist, device physics, Cambridge Display Technology (CDT), who discussed "Progress with All Printed Flexible OLED Displays." Andrew Sculley, president and CEO, eMagin Corporation, covered "The eMagin OLED Advantage for Microdisplay Applications."
Scaling OLED Manufacturing, the final portion of OLEDs LIVE!, featured Juergen Kreis, director business development, AIXTRON SE, who covered “Scaling Up Production of OLEDs – Costs, Challenges and New Developments.”Kateeva CEO Dr. Conor Madigan closed the session with "Scaling OLED Manufacturing to G8 with Inkjet."
"Inkjet printing enables precise deposition without the need for shadow masks," said Madigan.
Track 4 featured Graphene LIVE! Keynote talks were presented by Dr. John S. Lettow, Vorbeck Materials president ("The Expanding Applications of Graphene"); Grafoid vice president Dr. Gordon Chiu ("Few Layered Graphene Derived From Raw Graphite Ore"); Dr. Angelos Kyrlidis, principal scientist, Cabot Corporation ("Engineering Functional Carbon Additives for Various Applications: From Carbon Black to Graphenes"); and Dr. Anand Murugaiah, BN powders new product development leader, Momentive ("High Aspect Ratio Nano Materials").
Supercapacitors was the next focus of Graphene LIVE!, featuring Franco Gonzalez, technology analyst, IDTechEx ("Supercapacitors Replace Batteries"); Dr. Priya Bendale, senior director, advanced development, Maxwell Technologies Inc. ("Ultracapacitors: Gaining Traction in a World of Batteries"); and Pierre Mars, vice president, applications engineering, Cap-XX ("Applications for Energy Harvesters coupled with Supercapacitors").
The Graphene Opportunity in Supercapacitors was the closing session for Graphene LIVE! Speakers included Graphenea CEO Jesus de La Fuente ("Graphene in Energy Storage Applications"); Dr. Linh Le, group leader, Stevens Institute of Technology ("Inkjet-Printed Graphene for Micro-Supercapacitor"); Ryan Mendoza, vice president engineering, Graphene Frontiers ("Graphene Hybrid Devices for Energy Storage and Sensors"); Graphene Devices CEO Robert Anstey ("Graphenic Materials in Printed Electronics and Ultracapacitor Development"); and Ian Fuller, project engineer, Angstron Materials ("Graphene-Enabled Supercapacitors - Recent Developments").
Energy Harvesting & Storage, Track 5, opened with Dr. Harry Zervos, senior technology analyst, IDTechEx, who discussed "Energy Harvesting: Enabling Technologies for The Internet of Things."
Dr. Emre Karagozler, post doctoral researcher, Disney Research, discussed "Printed Energy Harvesters and their Interactive Applications in Books and Printed Media." Matt Williams, associate principal for ARUP, covered "Practical Applications of Energy Harvesting in the Built Environment." Eric Eisele, materials engineer, KieranTimberlake, discussed "Improving Building Performance with Wireless Sensor Networks."
Willard Tu, embedded solutions manager, ARM, covered "Big Data Begins with Little Data." Jai Suri, Oracle’s senior director of product management, offered insights into "Navigating the Internet of Things." Benjamin Wesson, SAP’s vice president product management for M2M solutions, covered "Creating a Better World in the Connected World.” Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center, University of California Prof. Kristofer Pister discussed "OpenWSN, Single Chip Motes, and the Future of the Internet of Things."
Energy Harvesting Powered Devices featured four speakers, beginning with Dr. Gregory P. Meisner, principal investigator, GM Research & Development Center, who offered his thoughts on "Thermoelectric Technology for Generating Useful Electrical Power from Automotive Waste Heat."
Dr. Keon Jae Lee, associate professor, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), discussed "Self-Powered Flexible Energy Harvesting and Storage Systems."
Keith J. Abate Sr., Perpetuum’s director global business development, presented his talk on "Perpetuum Intelligent Power Module (IPM) Enables Multiple External Power Options for OEM Wireless Transmitters."
Brendan Daly, system applications engineer, Analog Devices, and Roy Horgan, SolarPrint Ltd.’s business development director, discussed “Optimized System Solutions to Power a World of Self-Generating Wireless Sensors.”
Electronics and System Design to Enable Energy Harvesting Powered Devices featured four talks. Dave Loconto, design director, Linear Technology Corporation, analyzed "Extend Battery Life with Harvested Energy." Steve Grady, vice president of marketing for Cymbet Corporation, spoke on "Advanced EH Power Chain Design Techniques."
Dr. Peter Spies, head of integrated energy supplies, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, offered his insight into "Maximizing Power Output of Energy Harvesting Systems with Optimized Power Management." Mark Buccini, director, Texas Instruments, closed the session with "A Practical 1uA Sensor Sampling Solution for Deeply Embedded Systems.”