With an eye on the gains being made by flexible and hybrid electronics, 2019FLEX, organized by SEMI-FlexTech, will be highlighting the latest advancements and research in the field.

2019FLEX will be held Feb. 18-21 at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel & Spa on Del Monte Golf Course in Monterey, CA. Among the major companies who will be offering their insights are leaders from Ford Motor, John Deere, GE and more. Heidi Hoffman, senior director for technology communities at SEMI, said these talks will show how flexible, hybrid and printed electronics are making their mark in the world. 

“The program is designed to show customer pull – in the keynote talks – and technology push and pull – in the technical conference,” Hoffman noted. “The keynotes, which focus on end-user needs from Ford, John Deere, ST Microelectronics, Rogers Research Group at Northwestern and Danforth Plant Science Center, are always a highlight because of the insights into the customer’s requirements for advanced technologies.
 
“The sessions on devices and applications will also contain insights with speakers from GE Global Research, UTRC, Bonbouton, PARC and some new names, and feature products that are ready for design in,” Hoffman added. “The emerging technology sessions are full of fascinating tech, including advanced packaging, fan-out wafer level packaging, stretchable and rollable interconnect technology and very fine-pitch circuit assembly. We continue to see intriguing display technology advancements, including LEDs, EPD, ePaper, films and new the newest developments in metal mesh and TFTs.”
 
Hoffman said that this year’s show is exceeding previous years in terms of exhibitors and pre-registration.
 
“We are anticipating an active exhibit hall with a full 60 exhibitors (a record number for us), but also left the space for the TechTalks since those are very popular for hands-on demos and more informal discussion,” Hoffman said. “Pre-registration is slightly exceeding the pace of the last few years so we are hopeful of breaking some records this year, with more than 650 attendees.”
 
Hoffman added that it is interesting to see where those registrants are coming from.
 
“We see many more end-user attendees over the last few years who have indicated their type of organization as aerospace, consumer electronics, medical products, displays and automotive/transportation,” she observed. “We attribute this transition to a more mature technology that more companies are seeing as ready for integration. We also observe some the front-line integrators (e.g. Jabil, FLEX) providing more expertise in design and manufacturing with flexible and printed electronics. Thus, technology is slipping into many products un-noticed by the industry. Engaging with the community at FLEX is a great way to hear about these design wins.”
 
The MEMS & Sensor Technical Congress (MSTC) will again be co-located with FLEX, which Hoffman said proved to be popular with last year’s attendees.
 
“The most positive result was seen in the exhibition and networking events, where attendees saw companies with interesting products. While networking, I heard of many positive interactions between attendees from both ‘sides,’ but the best indication came from a post-2018 survey, where there was overwhelming support to keep the co-location for 2019,” Hoffman reported. “We expect even greater fusion this year with popular end-user topics in the MSTC sessions, including talks from TDK/Invensense, On Semiconductor, PNI Sensor, Verizon, UC Berkeley, Syntiant, Intel and Fabu.”
 
The conference begins Monday, Feb. 18 with three three-hour afternoon Short Courses: From Lab to Fab: Materials, Printing and Processing of Flexible Hybrid Electronics; Printed Flexible Electronic Devices: Signal Interface and Reliability Assessment; and The Intersection of MEMS-based Sensors with Flexible Printed Solutions--Addressing the Opportunities and Challenges.
 
“Two of Thursday’s sessions are devoted to the kickoff of phase 2 of the Nano-Bio Materials Consortium (NBMC) program which we announced in November under a new Cooperative Agreement with the Air Force Research Labs (AFRL),” Hoffman said. “The application space is a bit wider for this phase of the NBMC program, encompassing wearable health technology, flexible imaging, point-of-care diagnostics and en route medical care devices. The outcomes from Thursday’s sessions will form the basis of a Request for Proposals (RFPs) in the near future.”
 
The full conference begins with FLEX/MSTC Session 1: Keynotes on Tuesday, Feb. 19. After introductory remarks by SEMI Americas president Dave Anderson, SEMI president and CEO Ajit Manocha will discuss “A Beautiful Partnership: SEMI and You.”
 
Dragos Maciuca, executive technical director, Ford Motor Company, will follow with “An OEM Perspective on the Changing Automotive Sensor Landscape—Ford Motor Company.” Jason Jelinek, software technical manager, John Deere Electronics Solutions, will close Session 1 with “Autonomy and Agriculture.”
 
FLEX/MSTC Session 2: Keynotes begins with John A. Rogers, Louis Simpson & Kimberly Querrey Professor, Materials Science & Engineering, Neurological Surgery Rogers Research Group, Northwestern University, who will cover “Soft Electronic and Microfluidic Systems for the Skin.”
 
Andrea Onetti, Analog and MEMS Group (AMG) VP - MEMS SENSOR Division GM, STMicroelectronics, will follow with a talk titled “Accuracy Enables MEMS Sensor Pervasion.” Nadia Shakoor, senior scientist, associate director, TERRA-REF, Danforth Plant Science Center, will then discuss “Phenomics at Scale: Driving Advances in Crop Breeding and Smart Farm Management with Insights From Diverse Sensor Platforms and Technologies.” A panel with all five keynote speakers will follow.
 
“The 2016FLEX opening presentations are especially strong and compelling this year,” Ciesinski said. “Adele Ratcliff, who oversees all of the Defense Department’s manufacturing institutes, will keynote. The institutes encompass 3D printing, lightweight metals and materials, digital manufacturing and design, among other manufacturing topics. FlexTech was awarded a $75M grant to form the Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Institute (now known as NextFlex) last August.
 
“Flex International (formerly Flextronics) will address the wearables market,” he added. “DuPont explains smart textiles and fibers, and Stanford University closes the keynotes with a visionary presentation on self-diagnostic, fly-by-feel, vehicles with stretchable, flexible sensors.”
 
The conference breaks into concurrent sessions. On the FLEX side, FLEX Session 3: Applications I, will feature John Goods of C2Sense; Robert Street, research fellow, Palo Alto Research Center; Sameh Dardona, associate director for research and innovation, United Technologies Research Center; and Fatima Awan, VP, R&D, Bonbouton (FlextraPower Inc.)
 
FLEX Session 4, Display Technologies, will be covered by Michael McCreary, chief innovation officer, E Ink Corporation;
Byeong-Soo Bae, CEO, Solip Tech. Co. Ltd.; Sri Peruvemba, CMO, CLEARink Displays; Nizamidin Jappar, marketing manager, Kimoto Tech Inc.; and Roger Massey, technical marketing manager, Atotech.
 
Meanwhile, MSTC Session 3, End to End Solutions, will be discussed by presenters Scott Jones, partner, KPMG Strategy Group; Jay Esfandyari, product marketing manager, STMicroelectronics; InvenSense CTO Peter Hartwell; and Arm senior product manager Tim Menasveta.
 
Wednesday, Feb. 20, offers 14 concurrent sessions, ranging from Applications, Sensors, Printing, Reliability and more.FLEX Session 5: Applications II, will be covered by Tekscan, Inc. CTO Robert Podoloff and Yun-Soung Kim, postdoctoral research fellow, Georgia Institute of Technology.
 
FLEX Session 6 is centered on Flex Manufacturing I, and will feature Bawa Singh, EVP for technology and corporate development, Alpha Assembly Solutions; Frank Bruening, global product director, desmear and metallization, Atotech Group; Wei Wu, principal investigator, DuPont Electronics and Imaging; and Wilfried Bair, VP engineering, NextFlex.
 
Sensors I is the focus of FLEX Session 7. The presenters include Novasentis CEO Francois Jeanneau; William Beckenbaugh, chief scientific adviser and board member, Peratech Holdco; Tae-Woo Lee, associate professor, Seoul National University, Korea; and Aline Eid, Ph.D., student, Georgia Institute of Technology.
 
MSTC Session 4, Smart Transportation, will be discussed by Strategic World Ventures CEO Stephen Whalley; Hans Stork SVP and CTO, ON Semiconductor; Becky Oh, president and CEO, PNI Sensor; Tony Zarola, GM inertial sensors, Analog Devices; Nancy Ranxing Li, product manager, IoT, Smart Cities Verizon; and Angela Suen, head of marketing, FABU America, Inc.
 
After the break, FLEX Session 8 will feature Flexible Hybrid Electronics Technology, with presenters including David Grierson, co-founder and CTO, systeMECH, Inc., and Jean-Charles Souriau, project leader and scientific leader at CEA LETI.
 
FLEX Session 9 covers Flex Manufacturing II. The talks will be given by Scott Gordon, new business development manager, DuPont Teijin Films; Tony Flaim, corporate fellow, Brewer Science, Inc.; Vahid Akhavan, global applications engineering lead, NovaCentrix; and Harvey Tsang, electronics engineer, Army Research Laboratory.
 
FLEX Session 10: Sensors II, will be the focus of talks by Hylke B. Akkerman, program manager, Holst Centre; Giuseppe Di Benedotto, chemical engineer, Advanced Materials Technology Branch, U.S. Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command; Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center; Miko Cakmak, professor, Purdue University; and Pamela Bhatti, associate professor, Georgia Tech/Emory School of Medicine.
 
After lunch, FLEX Session 11 will cover Flex Interconnect. The presenters include Subramanian S. Iyer, director, UCLA Center for Heterogeneous Integration and Performance Scaling; Marius Ivan, co-founder and senior research scientist, Pricos Technologies; Hiroshi Komatsu, director, CONNECTEC JAPAN Corporation; Rob Irwin, engineering manager, printed and hybrid Electronics Development Group, Molex, and S. Manian Ramkumar, technical advisor, Sunray Scientific.
 
FLEX Session 12 will cover Printing, and will include Hayley Katz, materials engineer, US Army Armaments Research, Development and Engineering Center at Picatinny Arsenal; Denis Cormier, Earl Brinkman p[rofessor and director of the AMPrint Center, Rochester Institute of Technology; James Zunino, materials engineer, US Army; Reinhard R. Baumann, professor, Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nanosystems ENAS; and SAFI-Tech CTO Ian Tevis.
 
Devices I is the focus of FLEX Session 13. The speakers are Brian Berland, chief science officer, ITN Energy Systems, Inc.; Pavel Dutta, research assistant professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston; Thad Druffel, theme leader, solar manufacturing R&D, University of Louisville; and Mark D. Poliks, Empire Innovation professor engineering, professor systems science and industrial engineering, and director, Center for Advanced Microelectronics Manufacturing Binghamton State University.
 
On the MSTC side, Session 5 will cover Enabling Sensors Technology. Talks will be given by Greg Lebsack, GM, ICDS Division Mentor; Michael Gaitan, project leader, NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory; and Ken Foust, sensor technologist and researcher, Intel Corporation.
 
After the break, Reliability will be covered in FLEX Session 14. Speakers include Nathan Pretorius, printing technology engineer for NextFlex; Kei Hyodo, executive officer and GM, Yuasa System Co. Ltd.; Naotsugu Ando, chief designer, Yuasa System Co. Ltd.; Olivier Pierron, associate professor, Georgia Institute of Technology; and Mark D. Poliks, Empire Innovation professor engineering, professor systems science and industrial engineering, and director, Center for Advanced Microelectronics Manufacturing Binghamton State University.
 
FLEX Session 15: Devices II, will feature Tae-Woo Lee, associate professor, Seoul National University, Korea; Chang Guo, research scientist, National Research Council Canada; Rahul Raut, director, strategy and technology acquisition, Alpha Assembly Solutions; Michael Filler, associate professor, Georgia Institute of Technology; and Ahmed Busnaina, WL Smith chair and university distinguished professor, Northeastern University - College of Engineering.
 
MSCT Session 6 is centered on Emerging Technologies, with presentations by Yun-Soung Kim, postdoctoral research fellow, Georgia Institute of Technology; UC Berkeley professor Kristofer Pister; and Mallik P. Moturi, VP of product management and business development, Syntiant Corp.
 
Afterward, the FLEXI Awards and Student Poster Awards will be presented.
 
Thursday, Feb. 21, features four concurrent sessions, with topics ranging from MedTech and Inks to Design.
 
FLEX Session 16 will discuss Smart MedTech. The session will feature Arunan Skandarajah, program officer, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Innovative Technology Solutions; Tamara A. Averett-Brauer, research thrust area and product line lead, Air Force Research Laboratory: 711th Human Performance Wing; Roozbeh Ghaffari, co-founder and CEO, Epicore Biosystems; Joan K. Vrtis, SVP, innovation and technology integration, Flex; and a Smart MedTech Panel Discussion featuring the four previous speakers.
 
Ink is the topic of FLEX Session 17, and will include talks by Robert Praino, COO and co-founder, Chasm Advanced Materials; Christopher Tabor, research scientist, Air Force Research Laboratory; Don Veri, business development and sales director, MBT Systems; Ajay Virkar, CTO and co-founder, C3Nano; and Bruce Kahn, chief scientist and director of business development, RIT.
 
Design, the focus of FLEX Session 18, will be covered by Devanshu Kant, senior R&D engineer, Flex; Brian Zahnstecher, principal, PowerRox; Harvey Tsang, electronics engineer, Army Research Laboratory; Edward Collins, principal engineer, Jabil (HIG) Hardware Innovation Group; and Pradeep Lall, director of the NSF Center for Advanced Vehicle and Extreme Environment Electronics, Auburn University.
 
FLEX Session 19’s topic is NBMC Opportunities for Smart MedTech. FE Patterning. Speakers will include SEMI - FlexTech CTO Melissa Grupen Shemansky; Doyle Edwards, director, government programs for Brewer Science, Inc.; and Jeremy Ward, research scientist & program manager, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate of the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
 
This year’s TechTALKS feature 17 talks, covering a range of topics from production to new technologies.
Here is the tentative TechTALKS Schedule:
 
Tuesday, Feb. 19:
• 2:00-2:15 p.m.: “TechTALK: Printed Electronics for Medical Devices and Other Applications” – Jaye Tyler, Nissha Si-Cal Technologies
• 2:15-2:30 p.m.: “TechTALK: Ultra-thin and Flexible Bluetooth Low Energy ICs”
• 2:30-2:45 p.m.: “TechTALK: Advanced Flexible Hybrid Electronics Technology for Fitness Applications” – Ming-Huan Yang, ITRI
• 2:45-3:00 p.m.: “TechTALK: Thin-film CdTe PV Minimodules on Flexible Ceramic Superstrates” – Victor Plotnikov, Lucintech Inc.
• 3:00-3:15 p.m.: “TechTALK: Fitting the Function Into the Form” – Kurt Christenson, Optomec
• 3:15-3:30 p.m.: “TechTALK: Exceptionally Stretchable, Bendable and Rollable Inter-Connectors for the Next Generation of Flexible Hybrid Electronics” – Marius Ivan, Pricos Technologies, Inc.
• 3:30-3:45 p.m.: “TechTALK: AI Needs Printed Electronics for Sensor Arrays” – Ryan Giedd, Brewer Science, Inc.
 
Wednesday, Feb. 20:
• 10:30-10:45 a.m.: “Low Temperature Stretchable Bonding Technology Applicable to Flexible Substrates”
• 10:45-11:00 a.m.: “TechTALK: Dupont Thin and Flexible Materials Enabling Smart Applications” – Wei Wu, DuPont
• 11:00-11:15 a.m.: “TechTALK: Process Design Kit for Flexible Hybrid Electronics” – Sivapurapu Sridhar, Georgia Institute of Technology
• 11:15-11:30 a.m.: “TechTALK: Heterogeneously Integrated Foldable Display on Elastomeric Substrate Based on Fan-Out Wafer Level Packaging” – Arsalan Alam, University of California Los Angeles Center for Heterogeneous integration and Performance Scaling
• 11:30-11:45 a.m.: “TechTALK: Pushing the Envelope of Innovation in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and IoT - STMicroelectronics Introduces a New Generation of Sensors and Bluetooth Processors” – Jay Esfandyari, STMicroelectronics
• 1:45-2:00 p.m.: “TechTALK: Sensing for Autonomous Mobility”
• 2:00-2:15 p.m.: “TechTALK: Development of a High Speed System for Measuring Dynamic Tire Footprints” – Rob Podoloff, Tekscan, Inc.
• 2:15-2:30 p.m.: “TechTALK: Bonbouton Connected Insole for Diabetic Amputation Prevention - Developments Stages” – Linh Le, Bonbouton
“The agenda really showcases big advancements in manufacturing systems and solutions to devices. Those sessions, along with the hands-on demos on the show floor, really make for a very cohesive and information-packed three days,” Hoffman concluded.
 
For more information on 2019FLEX, see FlexTech’s web site at flex.semi.org.