IDTechEx crowns winners of Printed Electronics Europe 2019 Award

 

At the 15th IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe conference and exhibition in Berlin on 10-11 April, four companies were honoured for their great achievements in developing and commercialising printed electronics technologies. The judges of the awards were Dr Graham Anderson from BEKO, Dr Kiarash Vakhshouri from Google and Dr Adeline Koay from Diageo. The awards were presented by Dr Richard Collins of IDTechEx in Berlin on 10 April 2019. A summary of the awards and winners are as follows:

Technical Development Materials: MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions:

One of the missing pieces in printed electronics is a highly conductive yet low temperature processable component adhesive solution. Traditional solder requires higher temperature and therefore more expensive substrates to be used than PET. Conductive adhesives suitable for PET tend to have lower conductivity. MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions wins this award for developing a novel ultra-low temperature solution for PET-Flex PCBs, enabling component assembly at temperatures below 145°C. The judges agree that this is potentially a disruptive materials technology.

Technical Development Manufacturing: Centre for Process Innovation, UK

The multi-component roll-to-roll electronic assembly line at the Centre for Process Innovation provides electronics assembly capability for large area and flexible electronic assemblies which use a wide range of components. The system allows for flexible ICs, silicon die from wafer and conventional components to be assembled on continuous rolls of flexible substrates. It includes alternatives approaches to component attach including thermodes and surface mount oven which allows isotropic and anisotropic adhesives and pastes to be used for the component attach. Component encapsulation and automatic optical inspection provide for reliable assembly of circuits which can be used in a wised range of applications.

Best Institute/Academic R&D Award: Fraunhofer IAP/IMEC/TNO/Holst Centre

Inkjet printing is well established in the printed electronics industry. There are limitations of inkjet printing in two aspects: limit in resolution and limit to a viscosity range of 1 to 40 cp. The winners were given this award for the new ESJET technology developed within the Hi-Response project which can overcome the limitations of inkjet with respect to low feature sizes. A further advantage of the ESJET printing technology is that inks with a broad range of viscosities are printable from 1 cp up to 10 000 cp allowing for a large flexibility in the adjustment of the ink formulation.

Best Product Award: Stora Enso Intelligent Packaging

Stora Enso has recently introduced ECO RFID Tags to the RFID industry. These tags are manufactured with a scalable plastic and etching free manufacturing solution. As a manufacturing technology it approaches tag production from a printing perspective, which removes the need for excessive and harmful chemicals during the manufacturing process. It requires significantly less space and manufacturing complexity opening new and more flexible models for RFID production. By integrating the RFID tag with a paper label, the manufacturing process becomes more scalable and, as result, also more cost-effective – all without compromising on performance and reliability, according to the company. The ECO tag can be recycled in an environmentally friendly way together with paper and board materials. Moreover, it offers high conductivity at a lower cost compared with graphene or silver printed antennas and has similar performance as multi-layered plastic RFID tags. This manufacturing technology changes the IC attachment process.

Caption: The IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe 2019 Awards were handed out in Berlin recently (photo: IDTechEx)