November 20, 2013, Printed Electronics Show, Santa Clara, CA—Scott Sloss from Johnson & Johnson’s Lifescan division talked about the use of printed electronics in diagnostics and healthcare. This product category brings in $2.5B for J & J for the glucose test strips. Diabetes affects almost 400M people in the world, and half of these people…
November 20, 2013, Printed Electronics Show, Santa Clara, CA—Raghu Das from IDTechEx provided an overview of the printed electronics industry, covering both the technologies and business aspects. The ability to print circuits on almost any substrate is a disruptive force that encompasses organic and flexible technologies. The technologies can replace existing devices, but the high…
November 20, 2013, Printed Electronics Show, Santa Clara, CA—Karl Willis from Autodesk talked about creating new forms of displays and combining optics and electronics with 3-D printers. The goal is customized objects from fully printed devices. In collaboration with Disney, they developed new form factors for displays, sensors, and illumination. Light pipes inside a 3-D…
November 20, 2013, Printed Electronics Show, Santa Clara, CA—Mike Lu from Acuity presented commentary on OLED for lighting and the prospects for growth in this area. OLED lighting is poised for growth, since the devices allow more degrees of freedom in lighting fixture design. The technology world is making printed synonymous with organic, since the…
December 6, 2012, Printed Electronics USA, Santa Clara, CA—Jamshid Avloni from eeonyx talked about smart fabrics and their applications. They have to tailor the electrical and mechanical properties of the components to work in the applications. One application is resistive fabric heaters. Unlike electric blankets with a heater wire snaking around the blanket and causing…
December 6, 2012, Printed Electronics USA, Santa Clara, CA—Yong Tack Hong from Seoul National University presented results of their work in ink printed stretchable electronics for displays and sensors. This work is based on silver doped carbon nana-tubes and other thin films for the OTFTs on stretchable substrates. They are working on various printing technologies…
December 6, 2012, Printed Electronics USA, Santa Clara, CA—Alex Turnbull from Avidity IP espoused the need for a reasoned and systematic patent process for all companies. The patents have to be strategic and generate value for the company. Technology is always changing and the changes are mostly disruptive. For example, apps needed the smart phone…
December 6, 2012, Printed Electronics USA, Santa Clara, CA—Toshihide Kamata from the National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology updated the efforts on printed electronics in Japan. The organization is a research consortium of the big companies involved in printing, chemicals, and electronics. The focus is on large-area devices, using an ink-based, low-temperature process. Some…
December 6, 2012, Printed Electronics USA, Santa Clara, CA—Erkki Soininen Canatu from Canatu described the work in carbon nanotubes and fullerenes for flexible and formable touch screens. The materials are positioned as replacements for ITO-based touch sensors. Carbon nanotubes with a fullerene attached are conductive, transparent, non-reflective, and flexible as conductors. This work is addressing…
December 6, 2012, Printed Electronics USA, Santa Clara, CA—Gordon Smith from GSI Technologies described the steps towards commercializing a printed electronic subsystem. This effort moved a sensor and fluidics on to a plastic substrate for a disposable, hand-held flow cytometer. Flow cytometry is the process of counting and classifying cells for analysis and disease detection….