All about Flexible Macroelectronics

Vitex Systems accelerates permeation barrier production for photovoltaics

2009-09-22T12:27:00.002-04:00

Vitex Systems, Inc., a leading technology developer, licensor and engineering service provider for thin-film encapsulation and moisture barrier films, today announced that it has expanded its leading edge thin-film barrier capability with the qualification of its new state of the art, 2nd generation deposition equipment. The new equipment will be located in Vitex’s facility in San Jose and will allow the company to further enhance its moisture barrier film technology as well as service its customers.

In conjunction with its internal expansion efforts, Vitex has also elected to join the Flexible Display Center located at Arizona State University (ASU) and to donate its previous generation tool to the Center. The Flexible Display Center at ASU, which was established by the U.S. Army in February 2004, boasts collaborations with university, government and industry partners, both national and international.

“We have many potential customers asking Vitex to provide Barix Encapsulation and Barix Barrier Film for various applications. The investment for the new deposition equipment provided by funding from Battelle will not only expand our developmental capabilities but will also allow Vitex to more effectively service many new customers,” said Chyi-Shan Suen, President and COO at Vitex Systems. “In addition, all other member companies will have access to test and evaluate our barrier with our tool in the Center. We very much look forward to participation in this outstanding organization.”

Over the past year, Vitex has made excellent progress demonstrating the unique capabilities of its Barix Barrier Film for encapsulation of thin-film photovoltaic cells. Cooperating with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Vitex recently demonstrated results obtained on SoloPower’s thin-film CIGS PV that, when protected by Vitex’s Barix Barrier Film, the cells had less than 10% efficiency degradation after 1920 hours of damp heat tests at 85 degrees and 85% relative humidity, while the IEC 61646 standard only demands testing to 1000 hours.

(Source: Vitex press release)

OLEDs: types and applications - white OLEDs

2009-03-16T18:24:00.006-04:00

This is the fifth post of the Macroelectronics.org OLEDs series. Stay tuned.

White OLED is possibly the future generation of lighting source. A typical incandescent light bulb is roughly 12 lm/watt. (Lumen or lm is the unit describing the perceived power of light. Therefore, lumens/watt tells us how bright the light is generated per one watt.) The energy efficiency of conventional incandescent light bulbs is only about 4%. That is, for every 100 units of energy input to a light bulb, 96 units of energy are lost mostly in a form of heat. On the other hand, a fluorescent light, even with a much better efficiency up to 92 lm/W, poses an environmental problem due to the fact that it contains mercury which is hard to dispose and is harmful to an environment. The light produced is not an incandescent light; thus making it uncomfortable to human’s eyes. In addition, two types of these light bulbs are constrained by certain shapes. For example, fluorescent light always have to be shaped as a long tube. OLED lighting provides solutions to these problems.

OLED lighting uses the same technology as most OLED displays except that it only produces white light. Currently, the efficiency of white OLED is 102 lm/watt with a potential to reach up to more than 150 lm/watt according to Universal Display cooperation. Not only that, this OLED lighting is a thin sheet and does not have to be conformed into any specific shape. Imagine a wallpaper of paper-like light bulb. Because OLED composes mostly organic materials, it does not cause any environmental problem. The main setbacks with white OLED are that it can be easily damaged by water and the manufacturing cost is still too high to become a mass production. In year 2000, The U.S. Department of Energy established the solid-state lighting program which helps funding researches related to new generation of lighting. Universal Display, Philip, GE, and many other companies including government agencies are trying to push this OLED lighting technology forward, making the future of “greener light bulb” several steps closer to our home.

( via Universal Display, HowStuffWorks, General Electric(GE); image credit:GE )

OLEDS: types and applications - FOLED

2009-02-12T22:53:00.006-05:00

This is the fifth post of the Macroelectronics.org OLEDs series. Stay tuned.

Flexible OLED or FOLED is a very promising technology in the future. For FOLED to be flexible, metallic foils or thin plastics such as PET and PEN polyester films are used as the main substrate since it can endure strains very well. Because the display is flexible, it is less likely for the display to crack or break. Therefore, electronic products will last longer. Roll-to-roll process (found in printing industries) is an applicable manufacturing process, which will lower overall product costs. However, there are still many challenges before FOLED technology can be mass produced to the public. For instance, packaging FOLED is different than typical OLED. In order for typical OLED to be water resistance, two plates of thin glasses are sandwiched between the OLED. However, glass is brittle and it can not be used for FOLED where flexibility of the display is the key.

FOLEDs offer a new generation of display technology because they are durable, light weight, thin, flexible and cost effective. These qualities are ideal for mobile gadgets like cell phone, GPS, or even “smart clothing” where electronics are embedded within. Currently, companies such as Sony, Universal Display, Samsung, and US Army, are researching to make FOLED a feasible technology for everyday uses.

(via Universal Display, HowStuffWorks, and OLED-info ; video credit: Universal Display)

OLEDS: types and applications - AMOLED

2009-01-17T10:55:00.007-05:00

This is the forth post of the Macroelectronics.org OLEDs series. Stay tuned.

AMOLED, or active matrix OLED, is composed of an anode, a cathode, an organic layer, and a thin film transistor (TFT) matrix. Each pixel of the OLED is integrated onto a TFT array. TFT array controls the amount of current flows on each pixel which determines the brightness of generated light.

Instead of having external circuit to turn on/off the cathode and anode stripes that activate pixels in passive matrix configuration, AMOLED allows the current to flow through all of the OLED pixels while having TFTs controls how much current will each pixel gets. This is one of the advantages of AMOLED over PMOLED because TFT arrays need less power than external circuit. In addition, AMOLED’s pixel turns on and off at an incredibly rapid rate making it ideals for motion pictures. Though, AMOLED’s main disadvantage is its expensive manufacturing cost due to the intricacy of the active matrix structure that requires complex processes to fabricate.

Many leading display companies today such as Samsung, LG, Sony, Universal Display, Nokia and Kodak see a potential of and working on developing AMOLED displays. AMOLED now has become a promising technology for large display and portable display products.

(via universal display, howstuffworks, wikipedia, and oled-display ; image credit: howstuffworks and oled-display)

Applications of RFIDs (Part 1 of 3)

2009-01-16T20:30:00.007-05:00

RFIDs, as mentioned before, come in several different forms, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Passive RFIDs do not have their own power supplies, but are limited to short range communications with the reader; Active RFIDs have longer ranges, but are more susceptible to interference.

Currently, in everyday use, we use RFIDs for theft prevention at stores. However, several companies have come up with several novel ideas to make lives easier.

Such a company is Metro Group. Innovating from the warehouse to one's home, their concept of the RFID is prevalent throughout everyday life from when one reaches for the milk in the refrigerator to sorting clothes for the laundry machine.

Metro Group is one of several companies making the RFIDs that are placed in warehouses to account for inventory. They also have concept designs for refrigerators that tell the owner if he or she is out of milk; laundry machines that can detect when you've mixed in a red sock with your white laundry; mirrors that can take a snapshot of your physique so that you can try on the clothes that you picked out without actually having to wear them; and personal pads that you can carry around in a store, which document which items you are about to purchase. The last allows the shopper to pass through a scanner, with credit card in hand and, with the items already listed, payment is all but a swipe away.

All of these items mentioned, from the red sock to the milk to the new outfit, are all fitted with RFIDs, which originate from the warehouse with the original shipments. These RFIDs are integrated into our everyday lives so that you do not have to worry about minute things of everyday life.

(via Metro Group; Photo Credit: Space is Lost)

OLEDs: types and applications - PMOLED

2009-01-05T03:35:00.006-05:00

This is the third post of the Macroelectronics.org OLEDs series. Stay tuned.

The Passive-Matrix OLED or PMOLED is the first OLED to be commercialized. PMOLED is composed of anode strips, cathode strips, an organic active layer, and a substrate. Passive matrix is the configuration in which anode and cathode strips are arranged perpendicularly having an organic active layer in between. The intersections between anode and cathode strips are pixels. Light is generated when current passes through the selected anode and cathode strips. Therefore, turning on/off the current that goes through strips determined which pixels will be displayed and an image is created. Even though PMOLED is easy to fabricate and manufacture, the external circuit that controls current source is relatively expensive. Comparing to other OLED types, PMOLED is less efficient mostly due power loss from diodes and the strips. Though, this type of OLED still consumes less power than LCD display. Therefore, PMOLED is the most power efficient in and best used for small displays ranging from 2” to 3”. Currently they are used in cell phones, music players, GPS, and portable displays.

(via howstuffworks, universal display ; image credit: howstuffworks and danawa.com)

Active RFIDs

2008-12-28T22:20:00.005-05:00

This is the third post of the Macroelectronics.org RFID series. Stay tuned.

An active RFID is similar to a passive RFID tag: It has similar ciruitry and an antenna to that of a passive RFID. The main difference between the two is that the active version has a battery incorporated to its circuitry. This battery can be the sole or partial source of the tag's power supply.

The advantages of an active RFID include a longer range reading distance. The power supply can amplify the signal and transmit it to farther distances. In addition, the power source to an active RFID can also power other sensors on the RFID, enabling it to send certain signals under certain circumstances.

However, with the RFID, the downside is to replace the battery when the battery is exhausted; Likewise, a serious downfall to an active RFID is its cost. The cost of a single active tag can cost twenty or more USD, which makes buying a couple to several thousand for any use quite pricey. Furthermore, using a battery also leads to a much more bulky RFID, compared to a passive RFID.

(via Technovelgy.com)

Passive RFIDs

2008-12-15T13:17:00.002-05:00

This is the second post of the Macroelectronics.org RFID series. Stay tuned.

Pasive RFIDs are tags that do not require a power source to operate. Instead, the reader for the RFID is operated on a voltage source. With this voltage source, the reader is able to construct a magnetic field when it senses a tag is near. From this, a current is induced through the magnetic field, which allows the tag to send its signal to the reader.

Most passive tags signal by backscattering the carrier wave from the reader. This means that the antenna has to be designed both to collect power from the incoming signal and also to transmit the outbound backscatter signal. The response of a passive RFID tag is not necessarily just an ID number: The tag chip can contain non-volatile data.

The reading and writing depend on the chosen radio frequency and the antenna design/size. Passive tags have a variety of ranges depending on the antenna incorporated into the tag. Some have a read distance ranging from about 11 cm (with near-field) and up to approximately 10 meters (with far-field)! There are even some tags that can reach up to 183 meters when combined with a phased array. Due to the simplicity in design they are also suitable for manufacture with a printing process for the antennas.

The lack of an onboard power supply means that the device can be quite small. Commercially available products exist that can be embedded in a sticker, or under the skin in the case of low frequency (LowFID) RFID tags. This information can be even retreived from over a couple hundred meters. Because of it's low-profile and simplicity, there are several applications for passive tags, ranging from inventory to paying for products remotely. More about its applications and setbacks will be found in upcoming posts.

(via Wikipedia, image credit: Sandia National Lab)

HP & FDC demo flexible, unbreakable displays

2008-12-10T10:03:00.002-05:00

On Dec. 8, 2008, HP and the Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University (ASU) announced the first prototype of "affordable, flexible, unbreakable" electronic displays.

Flexible displays use up to 90 percent less materials by volume than conventional displays. The unbreakable displays were created by the FDC and HP using self-aligned imprint lithography (SAIL), a proprietary technology of HP Labs. SAIL is considered “self aligned” because the patterning information is imprinted on the substrate in such a way that perfect alignment is maintained regardless of process-induced distortion. SAIL enables the roll-to-roll printing manufacturing of the flexible displays.

It is expected that the flexible display market is to grow from $80 million in 2007 to $2.8 billion by 2013.

More details are here.

(Via HP. Image credit: FDC)

OLEDs: Advantages and Challenges

2008-12-04T02:14:00.011-05:00

This is the second post of the Macroelectronics.org OLEDs series. Stay tuned.

Advantages

Thinner and lighter - OLEDs are made out of organic layers , which allows OLED displays to be lighter and thinner than LCD or LED. The thin profile of OLEDs also leads to the flexibility of the displays. Thinner and lighter displays are preferable for mobile devices.
Brighter display with wider view angle- One of the important characteristics of OLEDs is that pixels generate light by themselves. By contrast, LCDs create images by filtering backlights to generate colors. Therefore, OLEDs produce brighter and clearer images comparing to LCDs. The emissive OLEDs also enable the wide view angle as much as 170 degrees.
Lower power consumption – OLED does not require backlighting which drains much power, therefore OLEDs are much more power efficient than LEDs. For example, OLED displays for mobile devices will lead to longer battery life. Currently, OLEDs are also being developed as the next generation of lighting source of high energy efficiency (see here for an earlier post).

Challenges

Lifetime – One of the grand challenges for OLEDs is their limited lifetime because OLEDs are composed of organic materials that are extremely vulnerable to water vapor and oxygen. High performance encapsulation technology for OLEDs is much desirable to achieve a device life time comparable to that of LCD. Such a technology, however, is still far from mature.
Manufacturing Cost – The stringent requirement of the fabrication environment for OLEDs results in the expensive manufacturing process of OLEDs. So far, there is no practical way to mass produce OLEDs at low costs. This also imposes another grand challenge to the widespread use of OLED products.

Even with these significant challenges, OLEDs are still being actively developed for various potential applications, some of which will be covered in subsequent posts of this series. So hang on.

(via howstuffworks, OLED-Info, and Wikipedia; image credit: Universal Display)

What are RFIDs?

2008-11-26T00:58:00.007-05:00

Macroelectronics.org will start a series of posts on RFIDs. Stay tuned.

RFIDs (Radio Frequency Identifications) are microchips of very small proportions that utilize radio frequencies to store and retrieve data. RFIDs were first used as espionage, the first devices capable to retain data through radio transponders.

There are two main parts of an RFID. One part is an integrated circuit for storing/processing information, modulating/demodulating a radio frequency signal, as well as other functions. The other part is an antenna then used to receive and send signals.

There are several types of RFIDs, such as passive, semi-passive, and active RFIDs. Passive RFIDs operate through inducing a magnetic field upon them, which generates current for them to work; on the other hand, semi-passive and active RFIDs require an internal source of power for them to function. More details about the different types of RFIDs will follow up in the coming posts in this series. Later in this series, we will also introduce the current and future applications of RFIDs.

(via Wikipedia, image credit: Rexam)

OLEDs: How it works?

2008-08-28T19:25:00.009-04:00

Macroelectronics.org will start a series of posts on OLEDs. Stay tuned.

OLEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes, are thin films of organic molecules that generate light when electricity is applied. OLEDs have a potential to provide shaper, crispier, and clearer display than today’s LEDs (Light-emiting diodes) and LCDs (Liquid crystal displays).

An OLED, with different layers of material, is only about 100-500 nanometers thick. It typically consists of five functional layers: substrate, anode, two organic layers (both conducting layer and emissive layer), and cathode. The substrate, usually made of glass or clear plastic, is used to support the OLED. When electrical current passes through cathode and anode, emissive layer receive electrons from the cathode, and the anode removes electrons from conductive layer. Once an electron leaves conductive layer, there is an “electron hole”. Then, extra electrons from emissive layer jump to conductive layer to fill electron holes. When an electron combines with an electron hole, there is a drop in the electron energy level and such an energy drop is released in form of visible light (e.g., photons). The color of the light produced depends on the material of the organic layer. Therefore, a color OLED display can be made by using different layers of organic material that emit different colors.

The following animation illustrates how OLEDs work:

(via HowStuffWorks and Wikipedia)

Macroelectronics.org: A World Top 100 Engineering Blog

2008-07-17T11:03:00.006-04:00

We are pleased to announce that www.macroelectronics.org was recently ranked No. 33 in the Top 100 Engineering Blogs (as of 17 July 2008, see here for detail list). The ranking is updating over the time. A real-time ranking badge has been embedded on the left-hand sidebar.

We cordially appreciate the constant support and interest of our readers, as well as the hard work of our diligent contributors of macroelectronics.org. Stay tuned, macroelectronics.org will always bring the latest progress in the flexible electronics to you.

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Thin Film Solar Cells: Konarka

2008-07-01T21:58:00.008-04:00

This is our fifth post in the Macroelectronics.org thin-film solar cell series.

Konarka is a company that develops solar panel using nano-enabled polymer photovoltaic materials. This polymer material, or as Konarka called PowerPlastic, is a semi-conductor organic material that are thin, lightweight, and very flexible. Comparing to traditional solar panel, PowerPlastic provides better performance, lower cost, and lower toxicity. Not only that, PowerPlastic can absorb low light level efficiently. The main component of Konarka’s photovoltaic cells is nanoscale titanium dioxide particles coating, a light-sensitive dye that generates electricity when light shines on.

PowerPlastic solar panel is created using roll to roll manufacturing process. Roll to roll process is the process in which transparent electrode, printed active material, primary electrode and substrate are printed onto transparent packaging to make a solar panel. This manufacturing process is inexpensive, environmental friendly, and simple. Currently, Konarka is invested by US military, the National Science Foundation, DARPA, and the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerece, etc. Konarka’s solar panel is a great prospect of future alternative energy source.

(via Konarka and Wikipedia, image credit: Konarka Technologies, Inc.)

Thin Film Solar Cells: PowerFilm

2008-06-11T00:23:00.006-04:00

This our fourth post in the Macroelectronics.org thin film solar cells series.

PowerFilm is the first and the only company now that use roll-to-roll manufacturing process to fabricate flexible solar panels. The flexible solar panels consist of several layers: transparent conductor, P-I-N device, back metal contact, and polymer substrate.
The polyimide substrate used for the panel makes panels flexible, lightweight, and as thin as 0.025 mm.
Thin film of amorphous silicon is used as the absorber layer in the flexible solar panels. Only 1% of silicon used in traditional solar cells is used.

The monolithic integration manufacturing process helps to reduce manufacturing costs and increase products durability because it eliminates labor costs and manual connections that can cause stress to the cells. Not only that, to improve solar cell durability, core solar panels are encapsulated between varieties of materials so that it can withstand different environment. PowerFilm has the capacity of make flexible solar panels of 13 inches wide and up to 2400 feet long.

(via powerfilm, image credit: PowerFilm.Inc)

Thin-Film Solar Cells: Miasolé

2008-05-23T00:39:00.008-04:00

This is our third post of the Macroelectronics.org thin-film solar cell series.

Miasolé is another influential thin-film solar cell company. Miasolé uses copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) as a photon-absorber material. CIGS composes of copper, indium, gallium and selenium (CuInxGa(1-x)Se2). CIGS’s remarkable ability to absorb photon was discovered in 1970s. However, it was not in the market yet because there was no high-volume manufacturing technique. Miasolé establishes high-volume manufacturing technology that enables the company to commercialize CIGS layer solar cell in large industrial-scale.

Unlike crystalline silicon which is an indirect band-gap semiconductor, CIGS is a direct band-gap semiconductor, which can generate more power per unit of material. One micron thick CIGS can produce as much photoelectric effect as 200-300 microns thick silicon crystalline. Therefore, CIGS is less expensive than traditional solar cell. Because only small amount of CIGS is needed on a film, the film can be made very thin making it flexible. Not only that, another advantage of CIGS film over crystalline silicon is that CIGS is more efficient in low angle and light intensity, which makes CIGS solar cell more feasible in real-world applications where sky will not be always clear and sun will not be shinning straight down into the solar cell. In overall, Miasolé’s solar cells are thin, light-weight, flexible, practical, and low cost (compare to traditional solar cell).

(via Miasolé and Wikipedia; image credit: Miasole (SolarPlaza))

Thin-Film Solar Cells- NanoSolar's 7 Areas of Innovation

2008-05-07T15:28:00.010-04:00

This is the second post of Macroelectronics.org's series on thin-film solar cells. We'll talk about the production, cost, and efficiency of thin-film solar cells.

Several companies, such as Nanosolar, have now come out with rollable thin-film solar cells, which are one hundred times thinner than traditional solar cells, and can also be made one hundred times faster than traditional manufacture procedure. In making rollable thin-film solar cells, a type of ink that is able to conduct electricity is printed on a thin, conductive substrate. This new technology is superior to the traditional solar cells not only because it is far cheaper to produce given the low cost of the ink and the substrate, but also because it produces more energy and power than traditional solar cells.

Companies such as Nanosolar have been on the cutting edge of this technology. Nanosolar's technology is based upon their "7 Areas of Innovation" including:

Nanoparticle Ink
Semiconductor Base for Printing
Conductive Substrate
Roll-to-Roll Processing
Low-Cost Top Electrode
Sorted Cell Assembly
High Current Panel

More detail information can be found here on their "7 Areas of Innovation." Convenience and efficiency may be a great advantage to Nanosolar's thin-film technology, what also adds to the benefits of their product is the durability: the solar cells are able to withstand temperatures from -40 to +85 degrees Celcius, allowing them to be used virtually anywhere sunshine is plentiful.

Check out the following KQED video on Nanosolar:

(via Wikipedia & Nanosolar; Photo and video Courtesy: Nanosolar , KQED)

Thin Film Solar Cells - An Introduction

2008-04-30T01:42:00.003-04:00

(Macroelectronics.org will start a series on thin film flexible solar cells. Stay tuned!)

Solar cells are devices that convert solar energy to electrical energy. The process in which the solar cell converts solar energy to electricity is called photovoltaic. Traditional solar cell is mostly made out of silicon, a well-known semi-conductor. When the sunlight hits the solar cell, photons from the sunlight is absorbed by the semi-conductor. The photons then hit the atoms causing electrons to be kicked out of atoms. The movement of electrons produces electricity (see figure).

Silicon is a brittle material and fractures at very small deformation. This poses a significant challenge to make and handle large area solar cell panels. To further reduce the cost to harvest solar energy, there have been emerging efforts on developing thin film solar cells that can be fabricated on thin plastic foils by a roll-to-roll process. The functional device material used in such thin film solar cells include organics/polymer film, gallium arsenide, copper-indium selenide, etc. However, so far thin-film solar cells are not as efficient as conventional solar cells. In the subsequent posts of this series, we'll review the currently available technologies of thin film solar cells.

"Morph": Nokia's new concept phone

2008-03-10T00:34:00.004-04:00

Recently, Nokia came up with a new cellular phone concept, “Morph.” This concept with University of Cambridge’s collaboration was introduced during The Museum of Modern Art’s “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition in New York.

Morph offers its flexible and stretchable properties or may be even an ability to clean itself for mobile phone. Morph will comprise of two basic units: a communications unit and a sensing unit. The communications unit will contain three possible functions: regular cellular phone, video conference device, or ear-clip mobile phone. The second unit, a sensing unit, will comprise of flexible/stretchable sensing screen that acts like keyboard, bendable sensors that is wearable, and sensors that can be integrated with other devices. For this concept to work, Nokia Research Center and University of Cambridge will focus their researches largely on nanotechnology and nanomaterial.

Check out the following YouTube video on Morph:

(via Business Weekly (UK) , The Museum of Modern Art , image credit: The Museum of Modern Art)

Bionic Contact Lens

2008-02-03T15:09:00.000-05:00

Researchers at the University of Washington led by Babak Parviz, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington, created a bionic contact lens. This contact lens is embedded with light-emitting diodes, electronic circuits and small antenna. Therefore, it is possible to see an image through contact lens. In the future, this research can be developed into a flexible display screen contact lens where people can surf internet or watch TV show through contact lens. This research can transform and benefit mobile device manufacturers if it is successful.

The researchers overcame obstacles to integrate the fabrication process for microchips, light-emitting diodes, and polymers used for contact lenses. The layer on top has electronics circuits that is as thin as one-thousandth of the width of a human hair and diodes are very small that almost 100 of them can fit in one inch. To bind circuits with the lens, the researchers constructed a multiple receptor sites that attracted a different component by mimicking capillary forces that plants used to push water up thought their roots. For this prototype, the lens surface hold antenna, metal wires for the circuits, and red light-emitting diodes on the lens surface.

Even though bionic lens is a very promising technology, there are some issues and challenges. Researchers now are focusing on the image quality of the lens because to see an object, human’s normal focus is 25 centimeters in front of the eyes. However, image is now right at the surface of the contact lens. Also, they are trying to find a way to provide adequate power for the contact lens. Currently, the prototype’s antenna can collect radio frequency waves and turn them into energy. The goal of this contact lens is to let user wear this device comfortably and so far, tested rabbits can tolerate bionic lenses for 20 minutes.

(via msnbc , image credit: University of Washington)

LG Philips high resolution color e-paper

2008-01-17T11:38:00.000-05:00

LG Philips LCD recently debuted the world's highest resolution 14.3-inch flexible color E-paper display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2008. The 14.3-inch E-paper display is equivalent in size to an A4 sheet of paper, with a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels, and can display 16.7 million colors. The super slim display is less than 300 micrometers thick.

LG.Philips uses metal foil as the substrates to thin-film transistors (TFT), allowing the display to recover its original shape after being bent. Furthermore, the view angle of the display reaches a full 180 degrees, so that images always appear crisp, even when the display is bent.

LG.Philips LCD will also unveil the highest resolution mono flexible E-paper which is similar in size to a B5 size paper and it plans to launch this mono flexible E-paper in 2008.

(via CES 2008)

How e-paper works: Cholesteric Liquid Crystal

2007-12-04T13:17:00.000-05:00

Cholesteric Liquid Crystal is another technology that holds great promise in making future e-paper.

Liquid crystal is a state of a matter in which molecules maintain their orientations and their respected positions just like solid, but they can move anywhere just like liquid. These liquid crystals are affected by electrical voltages. When electrical voltage is applied, molecules in liquid crystal rotate into specific angle depending on magnitude of electrical voltage.

Cholesteric liquid crystals contain nematic mesogenic molecules with chiral center. Basically, cholesteric liquid crystals are liquid crystals in which their rigid parts are pointing at the same direction and their molecular structure in the center are differed from its mirror image. Their molecules are in the shape of helix and are stacked together. The distance that the director (assigned direction of a molecule) takes to rotate in one full turn is called the “pitch”. This is important because in cholesteric nematic phase (the phase where molecules are not in any positional order in liquid crystal), helical structure of the molecules can filter reflected light into a specific wavelength which happens to equal to its pitch from the mesophase. Therefore, to create an image, electrical voltage is applied to the cholesteric liquid crystal so that molecules can rotate and produce a pitch where certain colors can be generated.

Cholesteric liquid crystal works great for e-paper because it is bistable meaning that it requires no power to sustain an image on its display. ChLCD uses reflected light from outside source thus required even less power. However, this technology’s downfall is its low reflective brightness of the display. Major electronics companies such as IBM, Fujitsu, and HP are developing ChLCD technology for e-paper into commercial use.

This is the third post of our "How e-paper works?" series. Other posts are available at:

(via http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/ and http://plc.cwru.edu/ , image credit: Kent Display)

How e-paper works? -- E-Ink

2007-11-27T02:18:00.001-05:00

Another enabling technology for e-paper is called E-Ink. It was first developed byJoseph Jacobson an associate professor at M.I.T. Media Lab. Joseph and his students with Russell J. Wilcox who graduated from Harvard Business School found E-Ink Corporation in 1997.

E-Ink contains millions of tiny capsules with diameter as a human hair, each of which is filled with fluid with positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles. When positive electric field is applied, black particles move to the top of the capsules thus displaying image in black color. Vise versa, when negative electric field is applied, white color is shown.

E-Ink is bistable. Bistable means that when ink moves to the surface of the capsules, it can stay there without any power input. This implies that electrical power is needed only to change from black to white or white to black color. Therefore, energy power required is minimal. However, this technology’s downfall is its slow refreshing time.

Now, with the collaboration between E-Ink and colar filter producer Toppan Printing in Japan, multicolor e-paper can become possible in the near future. So far, E-Ink technology has been used in several E-book devices , such as the Sony Reader, the iLiad, the Cybook Gen3, and Amazon Kindle.

(via http://www.prism.washington.edu/ and http://www.tfot.info/)

(Video credit: www.tfot.info)

This is the second post of our "How e-paper works?" series. Other posts are available at:

How e-paper works? -- Gyricon

How E-Paper Works? -- Gyricon

2007-11-11T19:12:00.000-05:00

Gyricon, the first enabling technology of e-paper, was developed a team led by Nick Sheridon at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in early 1970s.

Gyricon contains a lots of small spherical beads, sandwiched in between two thin transparent plastic sheet. Each bead is bichromal, meaning it contains two opposite colors (e.g., black and white) on each side of the sphere. These beads are imbedded in cavities filled with oil that allows these beads to rotate freely. Each side of the bead has its own electrical charge (positive or negative). These beads are rotated by exposure to an electrical charge; they rotate fully to display as black or white, or partially (in response to lower electrical charges), to display a range of grey shades. Images are created by the beads with distributed orientation, and are bi-stable: they remain fixed in position until another electrical charge is applied to change the orientation of the beads.

The following video demonstrates how Gyricon works:

(via http://www2.parc.com/)

This is the first post of our "How e-paper works?" series. Other posts are available at:

How e-paper works? -- E-Ink

Electronic Paper: History and Future

2007-10-29T00:49:00.000-04:00

The following is a brief Summary of an interview with experts in e-Paper, including the "father" of e-Paper, Nicholas K. Sheridon (the gentlemen in the photo)

Research on e-paper started roughly 35 years ago. One of the Xerox’s teams led by Nicholas K. Sheridon invented Gyricon rotating ball display, which was the groundwork of the first e-paper. Xerox’s concept in the early 70s was the “paperless” office. However, more papers were used after the widespread of personal computers. Computer monitors are uncomfortable to human’s eye unlike ink on papers. Therefore, Xerox tried to develop e-paper, an electronic based paper that closely resembles ink on paper. Yet, 35 years since the invention of e-paper, it does not enter the market.

The reason why it took so long for e-paper to enter the market was because the early Gyricon technology was expensive and had a poor resolution. Newer solutions to e-paper are electrophoretic frontplane and cholesteric liquid crystal technology. Though, no current display technology is paper-like yet. E-paper has to be thin, flexible, and comfortable to human’s eyes while consumed minimal amount of power. One of the biggest obstacles is the cost of e-paper. There is no doubt that this technology will be widespread when it cheaper than 100$. Many companies such as E ink, SiPix, Polymervision, IBM, Sony, Siemens, etc. see e-paper as a promising technology. Thus, they continue to develop commercialized e-paper products.

Currently, applications of e-paper are used for advertising billboards, display screens for MP3 player or even on microwave. Also, e-paper can also be used as a new method for labeling foods and drugs. In the next five years, electronic signs and billboards made from e-paper should be widespread. In 2015, e-paper products should be available for most people and become a real mass market.

(via www.tfot.info, image credit: Xerox)

Samsung's new 14.3" e-paper

2007-09-21T17:07:00.000-04:00

Samsung showed off its new 14.3" flexible electronic paper (2048×1536 pixel) at IMID 2007.
The new e-paper is black-and-white, only 0.3㎜ thick and weighs less then 20g. The most significant improvement compared to the first product developed last year is the resolution, which is increased by 2.5 folds. It also has improved durability, Samsung Electronics added.

Samsung Electronics said it can produce the new e-paper using existing TFT-Liquid Crystal Display panel production lines without investing in new facilities.

(Via korea.net)

Nano-Batteries

2007-08-15T12:54:00.000-04:00

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have designed a battery that can impact mobile, personal, and medical devices if put into mass production.

Dubbed the "nano-battery," it can withstand extreme temperatures (300°F to -100°F), and its production is printable: 90% of the material is made of cellulose (paper material) with the remainder composed of carbon nanotubes. This gives the battery much flexibility without any damage to it. It can run on human blood and sweat if necessary, while also running as a conventional battery, with long, steady power, or as a supercapacitator, with high bursts of energy.

Because of its flexibility and lightweight properties, nano-batteries can be easily molded and shaped. It would be possible to simply utilize them in cars, airplanes, and boats as panels or doors of the vehicles. Also, because of the cellulose and lack of toxic chemicals, the device is environmentally safe.

For details, check out their publication “Flexible Energy Storage Devices Based on Nanocomposite Paper” in the Aug. 13, 2007 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(via Physorg, image credit: Rensselaer/Victor Pushparaj)

Organic Solar Cells

2007-07-31T12:10:00.000-04:00

The use of silicon based solar panels are predominant in today's market. The silicon-based solar panels are often heavy (because of the glass used as substrates), which in turn lead to high shipping and installation costs. A better alternative, thin film organic-based solar panel, has gained great interest in recent years.

The researchers at Princeton, in 2004, demonstrated organic photovoltaic cells of improved efficiency by stacking two hybrid, planar, heterojunction organic cells in series. By using copper phthalocyanine as donor and C-60 as acceptor, they were able to collect both long and short wavelength solar energy and a maximum power conversion efficiency of 5.7% with an open voltage cirguit of 1.2 volts.

More recently, in 2007, researchers at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in Korea and at the University of California, Santa Barbara have announced the creation of a tandem solar cell. It better utilizes sunlight and has an efficiency of 6.5%. Through a three layer panel: one cell on top, a layer of nano titanium oxide in the middle, and another cell on the bottom, this design allows the top layer to absorb luminous light and the lower layer to absorb infrared waves. Furthermore, the lifetime of these organic-based photovoltaic solar cells can be lengthened through a special encapsulation process.

Conventional silicon-based solar cells cost $2.3 to generate one watt of electricity; the organic-based solar cells cost $0.1 to generate the same amount of electricity. It is expected that these organic-based solar cells will dominate the solar energy market through uses on windows, roofs, mobile devices, or even clothes etc. The total market for organic solar cells will be $1 billion in 2012 and $6 billion in 2014, as predicted by IDTechEx.

Here's the link to the Princeton research paper.

Here's a link to the GIST/UCSB research paper.

(via IDTechEx)

Printable electronics

2007-07-02T09:30:00.000-04:00

Interests are gathering in printable electronics (PE) technology, in which common printing techniques are combined with conductive electronic inks to mass-produce thin, flexible and cheap electronic circuits.

A recent report from NanoMarkets, an industry analyst firm based in Virginia, predicts that between 2007 and 2013, a total of 15,000 such printers will be shipped for printed electronics applications.

The growing number of new plants designed to produce printed electronics products such as displays, backplanes, RFID tags, sensors and photovoltaic cells, coupled with escalating R&D activity in this field will provide a huge boost for firms supplying related printing equipment. The addition of new printers to the PE industry's installed base will boost its manufacturing capacity from negligible amounts today to around 400 million square meters by the end of 2013, sufficient to produce almost $40 billion in printed electronics products.

(Via Gizmag)

Solar-Powered Clothes

2007-06-25T10:41:00.000-04:00

At the 2007 Pitti Uomo Fashion Show last week, Italian manufacturer ZEGNA, in collaboration with SOLARC (a Berlin based technology firm), presented an article of clothing that can take in solar energy and convert it into electrical energy. Plugging in iPods and mobile devices into one’s clothing to recharge their respective batteries is now an actuality and this is the first generation of “wearable electronics”.

Called iSolarX, the technology is composed of three integral parts: Solar modules, textile integration, and charging electronics. By using textile leads and connectors, not only are they easy to be produced, but also easily sewn together securely. These leads can connect the solar modules directly to the recharging devices. The solar modules are made of silicon, and can be monocyrstalline or polycrystalline, having dimensions of 9 cm by 5.5 cm. Each module is capable of generating 1 watt of power in direct sunlight.

What is more, the technology developed by SOLARC is capable of taking varying power into a direct, more stable, and adjustable current and source of power. The maximum input power is 10V, and with a maximum input of 1A of current, 1.5W of power can be generated. In addition there are 2 power settings: 5V for USB devices (for example: MP3 players) and 6V for cellular and mobile devices. Another option is to be able to recharge rechargeable Li-Ion batteries, which are used as an alternative temporary storage device.

(Via Presseagentur; Photo Courtesy of Zegna Sport)

Nanowires Enable Transparent Transistors

2007-06-17T13:05:00.000-04:00

Applications like GPS systems on the car windshield, and television screens that could be built into eyeglasses require transparent transistors in such devices, which therein lies the great challenge.

Recently, researchers at Purdue University, Northwestern University, and University of Southern California are working out designs on flexible, see-through transistors by employing zinc (II)-oxide and indium (III)-oxide nanowires into their designs, as opposed to the typical polycrystalline silicon transistors, which do not allow transparency. It is reported that the by using these two oxide nanowires, as well as aluminum oxide as the insulator, the resulting nanowire transistors on both glass and plastic substrates have an optical transmission of more than 80 percent.

The mobility of nanowire transistors is several hundred times better than amorphous silicon-based transistor. Because of the high current that is able to travel through the nanowires, researchers say that this will allow a larger pixel area. In addition, unlike silicon, there is no need for high temperature to manufacture the nanowire transistors, which is critical when using plastic substrates. The nanowire transistors also have better optical transmission than carbon nanotubes-based transistors, because the carbon nanotubes require small metal contacts to connect to the electrodes, compromising the transparency.

The researchers have published their results in Nature Nanotechnology.

(via Technology Review, Image credit: Sanghyun Ju and Chulwoo Son, Purdue University)

Sony's Flexible Color OLED

2007-05-30T09:40:00.000-04:00

Sony has just come out with the first working model of a flexible OLED display and demonstrated in SID 2007 symposium this week. At 2.5", the prototype grins in 16.8 million colors at a 120x169 resolution (80 dots per inch), and is only 0.3 mm thick, but still, is a "work in progress". It is made of polymer substrates, and, as you can tell, there are still slight, but noticeable, glitches and irregularites in the picture as the screen is bent. But, still, full color is a big step forward.
A video demo follows:

IBM, who has been known to have worked on this type of technology since 2000, hasn't made any working models. It is LG.Philips who will most likely be the competitor in the arena for Sony. LG.Philips' technology uses a metal foil substrate instead of a polymer substrate.

(Via Gadget Lab)

Flexible Macroelectronics (a video for middle school kids)

2007-05-29T12:02:00.000-04:00

This is a winning entry in the Sci/Terp Video Competition at University of Maryland (UMD).

Inaugurated in 2007, the annual Sci/Terp Video Competition is for undergraduates to make a 4-minute video that explains their science, engineering, or technology research to middle school aged students, shows what they're doing, and why it's exciting, interesting or just pretty cool. The judges include professionals, a class of 8th grade kids and their teacher. This video finally won the 2nd place prize in the competition. The winning videos have been shown to public during 2007 Maryland Day .

RFID Technology (Video)

2007-03-27T16:18:00.000-04:00

Here is a nice video on RFID technology from METRO Group, Germany's largest retailer. An earlier coverage on METRO's RFID showcase is here.

Flexible wireless electricity from power sheet

2007-02-27T23:10:00.000-05:00

Another creative idea from Prof. Someya's group at the University of Tokyo. A power sheet, which consists of plastic and flexible electronics, can wirelessly supply power to any device that touches its surface.Someya's power sheet relies on the well-known physical principle of electromagnetic induction and overcomes the limitation in traditional induction systems, which can only spread small amounts of power over a relatively large area, or fairly large amounts of power can only be supplied to precise locations.

Enabled by a novel design and by advances in the fabrication of flexible electronics, the power system consists of two types of sheets: one sheet senses the position of an object, and the other sheet supplies power to the object's point of contact, but not to the rest of the sheet. "In this way, the system selectively feeds power as high as 30 watts to electronic objects placed upon it," Someya says.

Someya's ultimate goal is to implement the device as infrastructure. By producing power sheets, as big as your wall-to-wall carpeting or the wallpaper in your living room, the power in your house will then exist wherever you place a suitably equipped gadget; no more power outlets or power cords.

(Via Technology Review)

Ultralow-power organic circuits

2007-02-20T14:33:00.000-05:00

Organic electronics are attractive because they are lightweight, flexible, and less expensive than silicon circuitry. This technology, however, still suffers from some drawbacks, one of which is the high driving voltage and power consumption. For example, typical operating voltage for organic electronics can be as high as 15 - 30 volts(10 to 20 batteries' worth) and these batteries can be drained in a day. This puts organic circuitry way behind silicon circuitry.

One major reason for the high voltage and power consumption of organic electronics is that the dielectrics used in organic transistors are poor quality so they leak a lot of current and have to be made in thick layers. This, in turn, increases the voltage needed to drive the transistor.

Recently, Hagen Klauk et al. have developed a method of fabricating organic circuits that run on a single 1.5-volt battery for several years. The key to the method is the use of a layer of an insulating organic material just one molecule thick; although the layer is very thin, it leaks only a small amount of current, while it provides for a large capacitance.

Read the paper recently published in Nature Magazine for details.

Record speed for thin film transistor paves way to flexible electronics

2007-01-15T22:47:00.000-05:00

A team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison led by Jack Ma, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has developed a method of making flexible, thin-film transistors (TFTs) that are not only inexpensive to produce, but also capable of operating at a world-record speed of 7.8 GHz, more than 50 times faster than previous flexible TFTs.

Until now, flexible TFTs have been relatively slow, operating in the 0.5 GHz range. This is fine for applications such as LCD, but not for applications such as military surveillance antennas that require high-performance but flexible circuitry for easy storage.

Several factors contribute to the record-breaking speed of their TFTs:
1. Nanoscale-thin membranes of single-crystal silicon, which has greater electron mobility and greater speed, are used, while previous TFTs are usually made of organic materials or amorphous or poly silicon.
2. Low-resistance electrode contacts, which has been rather challenging because the high temperatures needed to activate low-resistance contact connections melt the polymer substrates on which the transistors are fabricated. The team overcame this obstacle by using two steps. First, they made the contact connectors on a bulk silicon substrate to achieve low resistance, and then transferred the single-crystal nanomembranes to the flexible substrate to continue fabrication.
3. The TFT gates are made of silicon monoxide, not the usual silicon dioxide. Silicon monoxide has lower processing temperatures, higher electric capacity, thus can be made thinner than the dioxide. As a result, the device speed becomes even faster.

This research has been published in Applied Physical Letters.

(Image credit: Jack Ma)

Plastic Logic secured $100M investment to build flexible display facility

2007-01-11T16:02:00.000-05:00

UK Cambridge-based, six year old start-up Plastic Logic has secured equity funding of $100m to help fund the building of a production facility in Dresden, the first to manufacture plastic electronics on a commercial scale.

Based on the firm’s proprietary plastic transistor technology, the facility will produce flexible active-matrix display modules for portable electronic reader devices – a product category that is predicted to grow to 41.6 million units in 2010. It will have an initial capacity of more than a million display modules per year and production will start in 2008.

With Philip' Polymer Vision receiving $26M investment, this has been the second business announcement in flexible display market in early January 2007.

See here and here for our earlier coverage on Plastic Logic.

(via EW)

Philips' flexible display business receives $26M investment

2007-01-11T15:46:00.000-05:00

Technology Capital recently invested $26 million in Polymer Vision, a spinout from Philips' technology incubator who unveiled world's first prototype of rollable display in Sept. 2005. Technology Capital now holds around 60 percent of the shares in the company, while Philips still retains a 20% stake in the new company.

According to Philips, the transaction will allow Polymer Vision to push ahead with its commercialization plans to meet strongly growing market demand from the mobile device industry. Volume production of its 5-inch monochrome rollable display will start this year in cooperation with existing partners.

A new way to print devices of diverse materials

2006-12-29T21:43:00.000-05:00

Prof. John Rogers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and his coworkers have developed a printing technique that allows them to combine a wide variety of inorganic structures, such as single-walled carbon nanotubes, assorted nanoscale wires, and ribbons made of gallium arsenide or silicon, to create multilayered, high-performance optical and electronic devices. They can also print on flexible or curved surfaces.
Rogers's method begins with the fabrication of nano- and microstructures, such as an array of semiconducting silicon nanowires, using conventional techniques. The researchers then press a soft stamp onto these structures, and when the stamp is peeled away, the structures stick to it, much as dust will cling to a strip of tape. The nanostructure-bearing stamp is then pressed onto another surface that is covered with a glue-like polymer. Once this polymer cures, it adheres to the nanostructures more strongly than to the stamp: when the stamp is lifted off, it leaves the nanostructures behind, still ordered in the same configuration in which they were originally patterned. This is then repeated for the other structures.
The research has been published in the Dec. 15, 2006 issue of Science.

(via TechnologyReview, Image Credit: John Rogers)

USDC initiative aims at future flexible electronics market

2006-12-29T21:26:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Display Consortium (USDC) board of directors have unanimously agreed to launch an initiative focused on the emerging flexible, printed and organic (FPO) electronics market. This initiative will be the first-of-its-kind in the U.S. and will provide a wide range of services to industry, academia and government in order to accelerate the development and growth of the FPO electronics industry. The board took this action to signal its support for the rapidly expanding FPO sector, while maintaining USDC's focus on driving the emerging displays and related imaging technologies markets, such as OLEDs, flexible displays, 3D displays and high-resolution imaging. Given their myriad applications, FPO electronics hold tremendous potential, with experts predicting that the market for some applications could easily top $120 billion by the year 2020.
Read more here.

(via USDC)

Growing single-crystal organic semiconductors

2006-12-15T17:12:00.000-05:00

Fabricating large-scale semiconducting surfaces for the flexible screens of the future is a bothersome business. A simple technique for growing single-crystal organic semiconductors, developed by researchers at Stanford and UCLA, brings new vision to the field.

Single-crystal organic transistors are fast, but such devices always had to be made by manual selection and placing of individual crystals. The trick to being able to manufacture -- rather than handcraft -- large arrays of single-crystal transistors was to devise a method for printing transistor patterns on silicon wafers, flexible plastic and other surfaces.

They first put electrodes on these surfaces wherever a transistor is desired. Then they make a stamp with the desired pattern out of a polymer (PDMS).

After coating the stamp with a crystal growth agent called octadecyltriethoxysilane (OTS) and pressing it onto the surface, they then introduce a vapor of the organic crystal material onto the OTS-patterned surfaces. The vapor will condense and grow semiconducting organic single crystals only where the agent lies. With the crystals bridging the electrodes, transistors are formed.

The study is reported in the Dec. 14 issue of the journal Nature.

Update on Dec. 29, 2006: watch a video demo here.

(Image copyright: Nature Publishing Group)

Microlens improve light output of OLED by 70%

2006-12-08T11:22:00.000-05:00

While white-light OLED shows promising future as lighting source (e.g., see an earlier post), getting enough light out of OLEDs to make them practical remains tricky.
When electricity runs through the thin layers of organic polymers that make up the OLEDs, it causes the material to emit photons. The problem is that only about half of the photons ever reach the surface of the device, and about three-fifths of those that do reach the polymer/air interface get cattered to the edges of the polymer and never reach an observer's eye.
A research group led by Stephen Forrest, a professor of electrical engineering and vice president of research at the University of Michigan, recently developed a technology that can nearly double the light output of the thin, flexible OLEDs.
In their design, Forrest uses microlenses, tiny hemispheres of polymer a few micrometers in diameter that direct the light, allowing 70 percent more light to emerge from a white-light OLED.
This research has been recently published in Journal of Applied Physics (link available here).

(Via Technology Review)

What Nokia thinks the future of cell phone?

2006-11-20T15:25:00.000-05:00

Check out this concept design, Nokia 888 communicator, winner of the Nokia's Benelux Design Award.

It uses liquid battery, flexible touch screen, speech recognition, touch sensitive body cover which lets it understand and adjust to the environment. It has a simple programmable body mechanism so that it changes forms in different situations.

The tagline from Nokia for this concept design is: "The perfect form does not exist, form follows you".

Don't forget the video demo below!

(Via yankodesign)

Paper-thin flexible OLED by ETRI

2006-11-20T14:49:00.000-05:00

Korea's ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute) just showed off its latest progress on flexible OLED (FOLED) on "Next Generation Computing Show 2006". No technical details available yet.

(Via Aving.net)

Self-assembled circuits on a flexible substrate

2006-11-16T15:11:00.000-05:00

Fabricating flexible macroelectronic devices, such as large area rollable displays, thin-film solar cells can be labor-intensive. Efforts have been focused on developing fabrication methods that is fast and cheap, such as roll-to-roll printing. Such a process often involves multiple steps of printing, thus the registration precision over large area becomes great a challenge.

Recently, Sean Stauth and Babak A. Parviz at the University of Washington demonstrated a new way to fabricate circuits on a plastic substrate by self-assembly. Thousands of single-crystal silicon transistors and resistors were integrated onto flexible plastic substrates. The micron-scale components self-assembled onto etched channels in the plastic substrates. The assembly process was controlled by using differently shaped components, including
circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles, that selectively assembled in matching substrate channels. After 25 minutes, 97% of the substrate channels were filled with functional circuits. The circuits formed logic inverters and had a high electron mobility,making them potentially suitable for applications.

The research has been published in Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci (2006) 103, 13922

(Image credit: Babak A. Parviz)

Transparent flexible displays on the way

2006-10-30T10:47:00.000-05:00

The transparent film over the penny in the image has 70 transistors on it. They are made of invisible materials recently developed at Northwestern University. (Credit: Lian Wang and Myung-Han Yoon, Northwestern University)

By developing a low-cost method for making high-performance transparent transistors, the research group led by Prof. Tobin Marks of chemistry and materials-science at Northwestern University has taken an important step toward creating sharp, bright displays that could be laminated to windshields, computer monitors, and televisions but would blend into the background when not in use.

Most of the transistor is composed of indium oxide, an inorganic semiconductor that can be produced at low cost because it can be deposited over large areas at room temperature. The process Marks employs to make them is a standard technique that uses ion beams to control the crystallization and adhesion of the oxide as it is deposited onto a surface. The method can also be used to adjust the conductivity of the final material, which makes it possible to use indium oxide as a semiconductor in one part of the device and as a conductor in other parts.

The technical details will appear in the journal Nature Materials. Read more here.

(via Technology Review)

150 ppi Flexible E-ink Display

2006-10-26T13:26:00.000-04:00

Plastic Logic revealed its latest 150ppi SVGA flexible active-matrix display technology at the Plastic Electronics 2006 conference in Frankfurt early this week.

This is the latest advance of Plastic Logic in flexible active-matrix display since their previous release of a 10" diagonal SVGA (600 by 800) flexible display with 100ppi resolution and 4 levels of greyscale in Dec. 2005. Both displays utilize E-Ink technology. Plastic Logic sets plans to mass production of 10" 150 ppi flexible displays in 2008.

(Via Plastic Logic)

The Future of Ink

2006-10-20T10:15:00.000-04:00

Michael H. Suo wrote in iMechanica recently (you may also find the discussions there on this topic interesting):

Lately, e-book readers have been a new trend in the tech industry. The potential for it is incredible: hundreds of books in the palm of your hand, digitized content distribution, and infinite number of bookmarks, searchable text, hyperlinks between books; the list goes on. However, all these benefits come at a price; namely battery life and readability.

But what kind of display should they use? The average LCD screen has about 72 dpi (dots per inch), meaning that there are 72 pixels in every inch of screen. While that's passable for regular computer usage, anyone who's tried heavy reading will tell you that it's just not clear enough. By comparison, the average newspaper has over 300 dpi, and the average book has about 400 dpi.

What can be done about this? Obviously, traditional screens won't work, as the cost of producing display with high dpi increases exponentially. But our good friends at E-Ink Corporation have since developed an entirely new kind of display especially for the purpose of reading e-books. Named (appropriately) e-ink, the company's site explains the technology like this: "millions of tiny microcapsules, about the diameter of a human hair . . . each microcapsule contains positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles suspended in a clear fluid. When a negative electric field is applied, the white particles move to the top of the microcapsule where they become visible to the user. This makes the surface appear white at that spot. At the same time, an opposite electric field pulls the black particles to the bottom of the microcapsules where they are hidden. By reversing this process, the black particles appear at the top of the capsule, which now makes the surface appear dark at that spot." The dpi on the typical e-ink display is 150-200, which is plenty for comfortable reading.

The advantage of this approach isn't just in the dpi, but also battery life: electricity is only used when turning the page. One prototype based on e-ink technology has been displaying the same page for 3 years, and doesn't show any signs of stopping yet.

However, there are problems too. Obviously, the major one is that since each microcapsule is filled with only two kinds of particle, only black and white displays can be made. Another issue concerns usability; the screen must refresh itself each time the page is turned, forcing the reader to wait a second or two and showing an annoying black flash before displaying the next page.

Despite these complications, already many companies are jumping on the e-ink bandwagon. Sony, iRex (a spin-off of Philips Electronics), Amazon, and Staretek are all planning e-book readers, although only Sony and iRex actually have models out in the wild. Fujitsu and Hitachi are working on readers with e-ink that allows color, while HP, Epson, Siemens, Philips, Toppan, Bridgestone Tires, and some Scottish guys are working on flexible e-ink displays. Finally, others like Panasonic are still fiddling with LCD screens, but to the same e-book-centric ends.

But display technology isn't all that matters to the success of the e-book. How will users receive books? How much will they pay? What format will the books be in? All these are questions that each company has different answers to. Both Sony and iRex have proprietary distribution software (Sony Connect and iRex IDS, respectively), and although it hasn't been confirmed, it's pretty much a given that others will have their on services.

Sony has gone one step farther, offering books in a proprietary format, which can't be viewed by most other e-book readers. On top of that, they have included DRM (Digital Rights Management) that only allows the file to be viewed on 6 different devices. Many have argued that Sony is digging a hole for itself; they failed in the music store race because their format was useless on most MP3 players. However, others have noted that the piracy of e-books (already a flourishing venture) will be a significant threat to all purveyours of e-books and readers.

Reaction to the two consumer models--the Sony Reader and the iRex iLiad--have been mixed, with some touting the portability and clarity of the display, and others boo-booing the long pageturn times and non-intuitive interfaces. Some have observed that the iLiad seems to have been rushed out the door in attempt to be first on the market, and should still be in testing stages. Initial response of the Sony Reader has been postive, albeit with some misgivings.

A lot of question are still unanswered, and many details remain unrevealed. The e-reader industry is still in its infant stages, but be sure to watch it carefully for more developments in the future.

Useful links:

(via iMechanica)

Flexible transistors for sensitive textile

2006-10-06T22:01:00.000-04:00

A joint Austrian and American team has recently built ultra-thin pressure sensors which can be woven into sensitive textiles. The new thin-film transistors (TFTs) can switch back and forth in reaction to pressure. To achieve this effect, they coupled TFTs with ferroelectrets, which are electrically charged polymer foams that generate an electrical signal in reaction to pressure. After demonstrating pressure sensors for replacement skin or ultra-thin microphones, they are now ready for interactive clothing. For example, these sensitive textiles could be used in hospitals to know if patients have left their beds.

Read more here.

The team has published the work in Applied Physics Letters.
Flexible ferroelectret field-effect transistor for large-area sensor skins and microphones.
Graz et al., Applied Physics Letters 89, 073501 (2006)

(Via ZDNet)

Philips Lumalive textile integrates flexible colar LED arrays

2006-09-24T11:06:00.000-04:00

Philips Research intends to impress the visitors at this year’s IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung) with a world-first demonstration of promotional jackets and furniture featuring its innovative Lumalive technology.

Lumalive fabrics feature flexible arrays of colored light-emitting diodes (LEDs) fully integrated into the fabric - without compromising the softness or flexibility of the cloth. These light emitting textiles make it possible to create materials that can carry dynamic messages, graphics or multicolored surfaces. Fabrics like drapes, cushions or sofa coverings become active when they illuminate in order to enhance the observer’s mood and positively influence his/her behavior.

See here for details.

(via physorg)

2006 Flexible Display Report Projects Revenues of $2Billion by 2015

2006-09-15T13:45:00.000-04:00

DisplaySearch, the worldwide leader in display market research and consulting recently released a report on the technology, markets, challenges and opportunities for flexible displays.

Based on well-documented assumptions forecasting when these emerging capabilities will be available, the report shows a revenue forecast of almost $2Billion by 2015 as indicated in the following table. Revenue and area are also forecast by application.

Flexible Display Revenue by Application (US$ millions)

	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
AMLCD	0	0	5	53	125	180	245	265	278
OLED-A	0	0	0	0	0	34	74	186	268
OLED-P	0	0	1	57	64	128	175	180	185
PM LCD Color	0	5	10	78	161	191	260	295	353
PM LCD Mono	14	15	14	26	46	79	130	200	287
Electronic Ink	2	46	184	323	370	397	431	481	556
Total	16	66	215	536	766	1,010	1,314	1,606	1,927
Y/Y Growth		313%	226%	149%	43%	32%	30%	22%	20%

See here for more details.

(Via Display Search)

Carbon Nanotube Ink for Flexbile Displays and RFID Tags

2006-09-07T12:12:00.001-04:00

Researchers at RPI and the University of Oulu in Finland created an image of Albert Einstein using a conventional desktop inkjet printer and ink made of multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The work demonstrates the possibility of using the simple printing technique as a cheap and easy way to pattern the electrically conducting nanotubes and mass-produce flexible conductive circuits, and one day lead to low-cost, roll-up displays, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags for tracking goods, and gas sensors.

A description of the process, which involved filling off-the-shelf ink cartridges with a water-based liquid containing the nanotubes, is published in the August 2006 issue of the journal Small.

Read the story in detail here.

(via Technology Review)

See here for our previous report on the NanoSkin developed by the same RPI group.

RFID in China

2006-09-01T10:51:00.000-04:00

While many agree that China will become the largest market for RFID, few know of what is going on there or even companies involved in the sector. Therefore IDTechEx technical consultant Ning Xiao has toured China visiting RFID companies, users and the government to uncover the latest developments. IDTechEx has discovered progress from dozens of Chinese companies and surprising major RFID activities. Ning Xiao summarises his learnings in an article, which can be read in full here.

(via IDtechex)

RFID In a Japanese Dressing Room

2006-08-25T10:27:00.000-04:00

In a dressing room in the huge Japanese department chain Mitsukoshi, half-dressed customers scan RFID-tagged jeans and then use an IP telephone to check inventory and call for more clothes to be brought in.

The setup is being provided by Litescape, who claims to be already demonstrating to US retailers such as Abercrombie, Home Depot, the Gap and Virgin Mega -- so maybe we won't have to be too far behind Japan in this regard.
Read here for details.

Via StorfrontBacktalk

High-speed Si TFTs on Flexible Polymers

2006-08-22T12:45:00.000-04:00

A team at University of Wisconsin-Madison, led by electrical and computer engineer Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma and materials scientist Max Lagally, have developed a simpler process to transfer thin films of single-crystal silicon (only a couple of hundred nanometers thick) to flexible polymers, opening a wide range of possibilities for flexible electronics.

Transferring single-crystal Si and GaAs to create thin-film transistors (TFTs) has been first demonstrated by John Rogers's group in UIUC in 2004 (See reference for further readings). The method used by Roger's group is "rather cubersome and somewhat limited". In a recent paper in Journal of Applied Physics , the Wisconsin team reported a simpler and more versatile dry-printing technique. In addition, they combine it with a membrane fabrication method to create strained-Si TFTs, which show much higher drain current and peak transconductance values than the identical
unstrained-Si TFTs.

References:

Yuan HC, Ma ZQ, Roberts MM, et al. JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 100 (1): Art. No. 013708 JUL 1 2006
E. Menard, K. J. Lee, D.-Y. Khang, R. G. Nuzzo, and J. A. Rogers, Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 5398 (2004).

www.macroelectronics.org back on track now

2006-08-15T11:59:00.000-04:00

I've been on conference until early August. Right after that, I moved to DC area and joined the faculty of University of Maryland, College Park. It takes some time to get back in order from the transition. Now I'm happy to announce my new start here at College Park, Maryland.

I would like to thank all our subscribers and readers for your patience in the last two weeks. Your support and participation have always been crucial for the fast growth of this web portal. Now www.macroelectronics.org is back on track. I'll continue updating the Macroelectronics blog and the Macroelectronics Journal Club. Again, your comments are always welcome. If you want to join us as a contributor (or just want to make a post anytime), feel free to email me.

Thank you.

-Teng Li
editor@macroelectronics.org

Newest "World's Largest HDTV" (Video)

2006-07-27T22:34:00.000-04:00

The game to have the largest HDTV seems never slowing down. It takes only months for Miami's Dolphin Stadium (137 x 50 feet, 6,850 sqft) and Texas' Longhorn Stadium (134 x 55 feet, 7,370 sqft) to become former title-holders. On 25 July, 2006, Mitsubishi Diamond Vision announced that it has constructed a 218 x 27 feet (8,066 sqft) display at Tokyo Racecourse in Japan, which can display up to three races at once on the single screen. It costs $28 million.

See a video:

(Via HD Beat)

VOFET: an organic FET of high performance and low cost

2006-07-19T22:25:00.000-04:00

The organic field effect transistors (OFET), the key building block of device of organic electronics, have long been suffering low current output and high operating voltage, compared to inorganic FETs. This relatively poor performance results from both the conventional design of OFET and the low mobility of organic semiconductors.

As shown in Figure 1, conventional design of OFETs has a lateral structure. The space between the source and the drain needs to be minimized in order to reduce voltage need and to increase current output of the OFETs. However, such a requirement is often limited by the fabrication techniques. Moreover, conventional design requires the gate to be located between the source and the drain, which limits the cross-sectional area for current flow and therefore limiting current output.

The above limitations of conventional OFETs might be overcome by a novel design, the vertical organic field effect transistor (VOFET). Invented by the Yang Yang Laboratory at UCLA, and licensed to ORFID Corp., VOFET has a vertical structure, where gate-source-drain are arranged layer-by-layer (Fig. 2). The device consists of two major cells. The first is an active cell (drain/organic/source) vertically stacked on top of a capacitor cell (source/dielectric/gate). These two cells share (are joined by) a common-source electrode.

This unique design allows a very short channel length (less than 0.1 µm) between the source and drain and an extremely large cross-sectional area, allowing low operating voltages (less than 5 V) and high current outputs (up to 10 mA). Also, such layered VOFETs are suitable for low-cost fabrication techniques, such as roll-to-roll printing.

See the following video for demonstration:

(Image and video source: www.orfid.com)

Microcup® enables SiPix's e-paper

2006-07-16T22:36:00.000-04:00

A previous AFM entry introduced the award-winning payment card with embedded e-paper display from SiPix. Today we present a brief introduction of the enabling technology of the SiPix e-paper: the SiPix Microcup®.

The SiPix Microcup® is a microscale container which holds minute quantities of materials such as dielectric fluid and charged particles that are used in e-paper display. Large arrays of Microcups® are fabricated through roll-to-roll© manufacturing processes which enable economy and scale. The material is flexible, is easily cut to size, and enables many custom applications such as e-paper.

Structure

The Microcup® structure is typically 150 μm thin and is significantly resistant to impact and pressure due to its architecture of supporting walls. It is built upon a layer of flexible PET plastic, which may include a transparent conductor such as Indium Tin Oxide (ITO). The contents of the Microcup® are hermetically sealed to protect them from the environment.

Roll-to-roll© Manufacturing

The SiPix Microcup is manufactured using a high-speed roll-to-roll© embossing process (see diagram below). A continuous sheet of PET plastic, coated with a transparent conductor such as ITO, is fed through a coater which evenly distributes a proprietary resin across the surface. A microembosser then molds the three-dimensional structure of the Microcup® onto the resin. At this point, the Microcups® are filled with the desired materials and hermetically capped with a sealing layer. A removable layer then is applied to protect the Microcup® film until it may be attached to the backplane.

Fabrication of e-paper

SiPix e-paper is created by inserting electrically-charged white particles and dielectric fluid within the Microcup® during roll-to-roll© manufacturing. Once the e-paper is laminated to a patterned conductor with adhesive (see illustration below), the e-paper display may be driven. Note that the visible side is the bottom layer of the Microcup® manufacturing process.

Optical Principles

Under the influence of an applied electric field, the charged particles migrate through the dielectric fluid. If the white particles are at the visible surface, that area of the display reflects a white color to the viewer. Otherwise, the display will reflect the alternate color, which presently is either black, red, green blue, or gold. Grayscale may be produced by modulating the electric field across the Microcup® film.

Both monochrome and area color displays may be produced with SiPix e-Paper. The viewing angle is approximately 180°. SiPix e-paper has image memory - the display content remains after the power has been removed. Due to this benefit, extremely low-power portable devices may be created.

See SiPix FAQ for more details.

(via www.sipix.com)

First Smart Card with Embedded E-paper Display awarded Display Application of the Year

2006-07-13T23:24:00.000-04:00

SiPix Imaging and SmartDisplayer develops the first flexible display panel to be embedded into an ISO compliant payment card, developed by Innovative Card Technologies and authentication expert nCryptone.

During an online merchant checkout or home banking login, the cardholder generates a new, unique number by pressing a button on the card. As prompted, the cardholder then enters the number, proving the presence of the card, and completes the transaction.

A flexible, 0.25mm thin, ultra-low-power bistable display using SiPix Imaging Inc.'s Microcup® Electronic Paper distinguishes this smart card, allowing for increased security, control and personalization.

This flexible display panel recently received the Display Application of the Year Gold Award from Information Display Magazine and the Society for Information Display (SID). Information Display's Gold Award is the most prestigious award in the display industry and granted for novel and outstanding commercialized applications of a display.

See the video for a demonstration:

Note: www.macroelectronics.org will soon post a follow-up report on the enabling technologies of SiPix flexible display. Subscribe and stay tuned!

Life is flexible

2006-07-10T22:19:00.000-04:00

Five new flexible display concepts have been recently shown by Plastic Logic at SID 2006 with the theme that “Life is Flexible”.

These five new concepts are from the winners of a recent design contest as part of a “Future Mapping Project” with the Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design. Sixty Product Design students from all over the world set out to brainstorm how flexible displays will change our lives by 2010. The design concepts cover a wide range of applications in entertainment, work, education, health, transport and fashion, each of which highlights a different desirable feature of flexible displays – thin, light, robust and more.

As shown in the image, first prize won by Turnover (centre). Other prize winners (clockwise from right) were Smartbook, Emulate, Snapmed, Flexinfo and Digital Music Score. See here for the detail description and high resolution images of the winning design concepts.

RFID under hack

2006-07-05T21:39:00.000-04:00

As RFID is being developed for more and more applications (implantable VeriChip, merchandise tags as in the Future Store, World Cup tickets, to name a few), the vulnerability of RFID data security also emerges.

In a recent article in Wired magazine, columnist Annalee Newitz wrote about how easy RFIDs can be hacked. Five real stories "from the RFID-hacking underground". Among hacked RFIDs include: smartcard badge, RFID tags used in library, ExxonMobile SpeedPass, and VeriChip. Read more here.

(Image credit: Barron Storey)

Macroelectronics Journal Club launched today

2006-07-03T11:01:00.000-04:00

Last update: 15 Aug 2006

www.macroelectronics.org today (3 July 2006) launched Macroelectronics Journal Club, an on-line journal club focusing on scientific publications on flexible macroelectronics.

Mission:

Become an on-line library of scientific publications in the field of flexible macroelelctronics.
Become an on-line platform to facilitate the interactions among researchers in the field.
Foster scientific research and technological development in flexible macroelectronics.

How it works?

Macroelectronics Journal Club runs on a Web2.0-enabled platform, CiteULike (see a brief introduction I wrote recently).
Citation details of the publications are stored online.
Free access to anyone with internet access.
Club members can save their private PDF copies of papers online for personal use.
Club members can leave comments. Comments can be public (for discussion) or private (for your own record).

How to use?

Browse: Very simple. All items in the Macroelectronics Journal Club are here. Bookmark it and visit frequently for latest updates.
Subscribe: through RSS feed of Macroelectronics Journal Club and stay current.
Search: You can search by title, author, and tag here. Author cloud and tag cloud are available here, and also at the end of this post for your convenience.
Discussion: Leave your comments on a publication, or on someone else's comments. This is how we interact with each other. Got some thoughts on a publication and not want to share? No problem, you have the option to keep your comments private.

How to post?

Highly Recommended:

Sign up at CiteULike and create an account first.
Log on
View group, scroll down to find the Macroelectronics group, then "ask to join the group".
The Group manger (yours truly) needs to approve your application. But do email JournalClub@macroelectronics.org and let us know you are in the que.
After approved, you're free to post items of interest to Macroelectronics Journal Club. Click a button and sit back. Let the system extract all citation details for you. (works in most cases except.... see Notes below)
You can then assign tags to the item, e.g., macroelectronics, flexible-displays, review, OLED, etc. These tags will help organizing and searching items easily. Check available tags first (see tag cloud below). If not there, feel free to generate new tags.
If you want, leave your comments/notes on the item.

or :

Email JournalClub@macroelectronics.org any publications of interest of flexible macroelectronics. We will post them for you and acknowledge your contribution in the items.

Notes:

This post is linked at the left side bar of www.macroelectronics.org, under "Highlighted Topics", and will be updated regularly. So visit frequently to see the latest updates.
All items you post will be stored in both Macroelectronics Journal Club and your personal CiteULike library.
CiteULike can automatically extract citation details from many websites (see here for a list). In case you have an item on a website not supported, or not available online, you can post it manually.
Tags can not include spaces (for reasons you'll appreciate later on). The default rule to name multi-word tag is "word1-word2-word3...".
Everyone is welcome to browse the Macroelectronics Journal Club, but only registered members can leave comments.

Questions and information:

Contact Macroelectronics Journal Club through email:
JournalClub@macroelectronics.org

Last update: 15 Aug 2006

Total members: 6

Total items: 59

Author cloud:

All current authors in Macroelectronics Journal Club. Bigger ones are more popular.

Aguas Alam Allen Amundson Apte Arias Arvan Baca Baldwin Bao Becker Bhattacharya Bock Brazis Bujas Cairns Campbell Cao Chabinyc Chalamala Chan Chason Chen Cheng Chu Crawford Crone Daniel Deen Dennler Dodabalapur Drzaic Duggal Dunkel Eliasson Erlat Esler Estes Ewing Fathipour Feist Ferreira Flewitt Forrest Fortunato Foust Friedman Gaderi Gamota Gleskova Goodarzi Ha Hack Hamadani Han Handy Hao Harmon Hatalis Heller Hopper Horndt Hsu Huang Iba Jacobsen Jain Jang Jeong Jiang Johannes Jones Josephson Kalyanasundaram Kane Kato Katz Kawaguchi Kazemeini Khang Kim Klein Klosner Kowalsky Krusor Kuck Kukla Kumar Kuniyoshi Kunze Lacour Lagally Lee Lemaitre Leterrier Lewis Li Lieber Lim Limb Liu Ludwig Lujan Ma Mack Markus Martins Mcalpine Mcconnelee Meitl Milne Moddel Mohajerzadeh Moussessian Murase Murthy Narayan Natelson Nathan Noguchi Oh Olivier Ong Ouyang Parashkov Park Pellow Pereira Prakash Raghunandan Raju Ready Reuss Riedl Roberts Rogers Sakurai Salleo Salzman Sariciftci Savage Sazonov Schaepkens Sekitani Servati Shim Shin Shinaoka Snow Someya Soo Street Striakhilev Sturm Suo Takagi Tan Tanaka Tarighat Temple Tseng Tung Vlassak Wagner Wong Woodall Wu Xi Xia Xiang Yan Yang Yuan Zaumseil Zemel Zhang Zhu Zyung

Tag cloud:

All current tags in Macroelectronics Journal Club. Bigger ones are more popular.

adhesion applications book compliant-pattern conducting-polymer cracking ductility eink electronic-skin experiment flat-panel-displays flexible-displays flexible-electronics interconnect localization macroelectronics materials mechanics modeling ofet oled patterning platform polymer-substrate printing review roll-to-roll simulation solar-cell stretchability technology tft thin-metal-film

ResearchGroup: Organic Transistor Lab at Univ. of Tokyo

2006-06-30T10:33:00.000-04:00

ResearchGroup series today introduces Organic Transistor Lab, led by Dr. Takao Someya, at the University of Tokyo, Japan.

From group website:

"Our research mission is to realize flexible, large-are electronics based on organic thin-film transistors prepared on plastic films. In particular, we build up a new class of applications of organic transistors, which includes flexible, large-area sensor arrays and plastic MEMS-type actuators. For the above objectives, we intensively study organic transistors to understand their fundamental device physics, namely to answer the questions how grain boundary affects transport properties of polycrystalline organic thin film, what is the fundamental limit of mobility of organic transistors, how flexible organic transistors is, what limits the off current of organic transistors and more. Furthermore, our group also has lots of research activities related to low-cost manufacturing process of organic transistors, where printing, micro-plating, and micro-lamination play important roles. Reduction of device dimensions is one of our central concerns and our group makes an effort to develop ultra-fine micro- and nano-printing approaches to realize lower power consumption and higher frequency device performance."

Related research highlights:

Electronic Artificial Skins
Sheet image scanners
Sheet Braille Displays

See their group webpage for detail descriptions, including more images and movies.

Note: To suggest a research group or research center with research focus on flexible macroelectronics to this series of introduction, contact us. See the full list of research groups and centers in this series here.

All World Cup tickets RFID tagged

2006-06-29T15:38:00.000-04:00

More than 3.7 million tickets have been sold for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. It is easy to imagine the great potential of ticket forgeries and black market for this "one of the most coveted sports events on the planet".

As a result, FIFA and Germany have chosen Philips, a major world player in smart-card technology, to tag every single ticket for the 2006 World Cup with a RFID chip. The tickets also have added logistics value. They can be used to expedite the parking, use of lockers, access to public transportation and even for the purchase, since personal information and banking information have already been stored in the tickets. Each RFID chip costs 10 eurocent therefore the World Cup organisers are paying an extra bill of more than € 370,000. However, Philips hopes that after the World Cup RFID ticketing will be more widely accepted and the price may drop.

Again, the large scale application of RFID technology has raised concerns of possible abuse for surveillance.

Science magazine reviews flexible inorganic electronics

2006-06-19T17:45:00.000-04:00

The enthusiasm for flexible organic electronics aside, it is unlikely that many flexible devices will be made entirely of organic materials, because they cannot serve all functions of inorganic materials. For example, organic thin-film transistor (TFT) is still limited by low carrier mobility. Organic conductors are still suffering low electrical conductivity and inadequate long-time stability. Furthermore, bare organic electronic components are vulnerable to atmospheric oxygen and moisture. As a result, many efforts have been also placed on developing flexible electronics with conventional inorganic materials on flexible substrates.

The 16 June 2006 issue of Science magazine has a News Focus on the recent progress on flexible inorganic electronics, in which various recent literatures in this topic are reviewed and several active researchers in the field, such as Sigurd Wagner at Princeton, John Rogers at UIUC, and Stephanie Lacour at Cambridge University, are interviewed.

"A dark-horse technology bids to overtake plastics in the race to make circuits that can twist and stretch..."

See the full article here (subscription required).

MRS Bulletin features Macroelectronics

2006-06-17T10:16:00.000-04:00

The June 2006 issue of MRS Bulletin features Macroelectronics.

"While the microelectronics industry strives to make the smallest possible devices in the smallest possible area, the field of “macroelectronics” addresses applications that conventional integrated circuits cannot: active control circuitry in situ, over areas of up to many square meters, for displays, solar panels, x-ray imagers, surface measurements, structural shape control, vehicle health monitoring, and other large-scale systems. Compatible materials, flexible substrates, processing conditions, and functionality provide grand challenges that are just beginning to be addressed by researchers."

The guest editor of this issue include Robert H. Reuss (program manager of DARPA's macroelectronics program), Darrel G. Hopper (principal electronics engineer at US ARFL), and Jae-Geun Park (Materials Center at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology)

The issue include a theme review article by the guest editors and four theme technical articles covering various topics related to macroelectronics.

(via www.mrs.org)

Epson develops A6-Size E-Paper with QXGA resolution

2006-06-14T21:33:00.000-04:00

In the recent SID2006 international symposium, Seiko Epson Corp. ("Epson") announced their latest development of an A6-size (7.1 inches on the diagonal), 0.47 mm thick electronic paper, with Quad-XGA resolution (1536 x 2048 pixels).

The enabling technologies of this new product include low temperature polysilicon thin film transistors (LTPS-TFT) and surface free technology by laser ablation /annealing (SUFTLA), which enables the transfer of TFT circuits to flexible substrates. This product also uses the electrophoretic devices made by E-ink.

Related information:

In February 2005, Epson unveiled the industry's first flexible 8-bit asynchronous microprocessor.
In September 2005, Epson developed world's first flexible TFT SRAM.
In SID2005 international symposium, Epson announced a prototype for a 2-inch, 0.375mm thick electronic paper with resolution of 320 x 240 pixels.

(image source: Epson Corporate)

Future Store powered by RFID

2006-06-13T21:50:00.000-04:00

The Future Store Initiative was launched in April 2003 by METRO Group, Germany's largest retailer and the fifth largest retailer in the world. Located in Rheinberg near Düsseldorf, this supermarket became the industry's showplace for RFID technology.

As a customer, your shopping cart at the Future Store is attached with a Personal Shopping Assistant (PSA), equipped with a pressure-sensitive touchscreen as well as a built-in barcode scanner. Product information and special promotions will be displayed on screen. At check-out, you just need to hand the PSA to the cashier and no longer have to empty your cart.

When a product is removed from or added to the shelf, the built-in RFID reading device registers the movement and transmits the information to the supply chain management system – stocks are updated. In addition, the shelf automatically registers incorrectly shelved or missing goods. Out-of-stock situations are avoided. Currently, only selected products are provided with RFID Smart Chips. They include CDs, DVDs, videos, tapes and video games as well as razor blades from Gillette, Pantene hair products from Procter & Gamble and Philadelphia cream cheese from Kraft.

Electronic Advertising Displays and Electronic Price Labels are used in the Future Store to provide the customers reliable, up-to-date product and price information. And a staff member can use a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to change the sale information as required in a matter of seconds.

Take a virtual tour of Future Store here ( or a REAL virtual tour here). For more details, visit Future Store website.

(image source: Future Store Initiative)

VeriChip: Human-implantable RFID microchip

2006-06-08T22:12:00.000-04:00

VeriChip is the first FDA-approved human-implantable RFID microchip. About twice the size of a grain of rice, this passive device is typically implanted above the triceps area of an individual’s right arm and can be scanned and emit a unique 16 digit identification number, which can correlate the user information stored on a backend database. The insertion process can be performed in a physician’s office and takes only a few seconds.

Primarily marketed for medical applications, the VeriChip can link patients to their password-protected medical history, important contact information and other related information in VeriChip-enabled emergency rooms during the first several minutes of care. VeryChip is not very cheap yet. Total cost of the chip and the insertion is about $200 and no insurance covers such cost currently. The company estimates that approximately 2000 people worldwide (and about 60 in USA) currently have a VeriChip.

The VeriChip RFID implant has been shown to be insecure. The ID contained in the chip is completely unencrypted, and can be read by anyone, without permission or password. This may lead to potential identity theft. We will have further coverage on this issue soon.

(image source: www.VeriChip.com)

ResearchCenter: Flexible Display Center at Arizona State Univ.

2006-06-04T16:44:00.000-04:00

The Flexible Display Center (FDC) at the Arizona State University opened on Feb. 4, 2005, which is the result of a $43.7 million, five-year cooperative agreement between the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and ASU with an option for an additional $50 million over an additional five-year period.

The FDC Mission is to advance full-color flexible display technology while catalyzing development of a vibrant flexible display industry by contributing to and accelerating development of human capital, tools, facilities, and intellectual property.
Working within the center will be researchers from a strategically formed team of military, industry and academic partners. Industry partners include DuPont Displays, Kodak, Honeywell, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Universal Display Corporation, Kent Displays, E Ink, FlexICs, Three-Five Systems, General Atomics, Optiva, ECD, Southwall, the U.S. Display Consortium, and AGI. Key academic partners include Cornell University, the University of Southern California, Penn State University and the University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center.

For more details, see FDC website.

World's thinnest flexible display developed by Bridgestone

2006-06-02T21:44:00.000-04:00

The world's largest manufacturer of tires, Bridgestone Corporation in Tokyo, announced on May 31, 2006 that it has developed the "world's largest-class, thinnest and flexible color display".
Empowered by the Electronic Liquid Powder technology, which was developed by Bridgestone in March 2002, the new display employs all-plastic panel, leading to flexible, ultra thin, ultra light and much larger products. Three aspects distinguish this new display from others of this kind:

It uses a special rib structure to solve the image distortion problem when the display is bent
New Electronic Liquid Powder enables two vivid colors (as shown in the picture)
Ultra thin: 0.29 mm, much larger: 9 inches

Bridgestone will exhibit this display at SID2006.

Princeton Awarded USDC R&D Contract on Flexible Backplane

2006-05-31T21:34:00.000-04:00

The U.S. Display Consortium (USDC) recently announced a $1.7M development agreement with the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM) at Princeton University. The purpose of the R&D contract is for the university to develop the process technology and know-how to produce amorphous silicon thin film transistors (a-Si TFTs) on a clear, high temperature-capable polymer foil (the long awaited flexible substrate). The Princeton team is led by Dr. James C. Sturm and Dr. Sigurd Wagner.

"The project with Princeton University and their industrial partners is an exciting step forward for the flexible displays and microelectronics industry, .... This is the first USDC project to adapt current display industry ‘processing envelopes’ to polymer substrates in order to obtain TFT performance equivalent to that on glass." stated Dr. M.R. Pinnel, chief technology officer for USDC.

Read more here.

(via www.usdc.org)

SID 2006, June 4-9, 2006, San Francisco

2006-05-30T11:52:00.000-04:00

The Society for Information Display (SID) International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, now in its 44th year, is the premier international gathering of scientists, engineers, manufacturers and users in the electronic-display industry.

The event provides access to a wide range of technology and applications from high-definition flat-panel displays using both emissive and liquid-crystal technology to the latest in OLED displays and large-area projection-display systems. One can find state-of-the-art information on the latest in image processing, systems software and display processor hardware, human factors and applied vision, and exciting new applications such as multimedia and the electronic cinema.

With more than 550 booths and 7,500 attendees, SID is the leading North American show for the electronic-display industry.

See SID2006 website for more details.

World's largest HD video display

2006-05-24T10:53:00.000-04:00

Daktronics, a recognized worldwide leading designer and manufacturer of LED video displays, recently manufactured and installed the world's largest hi-definition video display behind the east end zone of the Dolphin Stadium in Miami, FL. This display measures 50 feet high by 140 feet wide with a true resolution of 736 pixels high by 2,112 pixels wide, which is nearly 20 percent larger than the one installed in 2005 that was recognized as the largest by Guinness World Records.

Here are some specifics:

4.4 trillion color capability
736 x 2,112 Pure Pixel® resolution
1.5 million full-color LED (light emitting diode) pixels
4.6 million individual LEDs
Incredible image clarity
Super-wide screen aspect ratio
Split-screen, picture in picture capability
Live scoring and data display capabilities

A second large display of the kind was installed behind the west end zone, which measures 50 feet high by 140 feet wide. A fascia display, approximately 4 feet high by 2,105 feet wide with resolution of 48 pixels high by 28,064 pixels wide, will also be installed surrounding the seating bowl in July 2006.

You may also want to check this video to view the progress of the installation of the display.

World’s Thinnest and Lightest TFT LCD for laptop

2006-05-23T12:39:00.000-04:00

Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology Co., Ltd. (TMDisplay), the leading manufacture of thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD modules for mobile applications, announced mass production of an 12.1-inch wide-format (16:10) low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) TFT LCD for notebook PC applications using a new light emitting diode (LED) backlighting system and thinnest glass substrates. This approach results in a module with thickness of 2.9mm (at the thinnest part) and weight of 183g, which is about half thickness and 32% reduction of weight compared with current product.

Items	Specifications
Display Size (diagonal)	31cm (12.1-inch)
Pixel Format	1280 x 800 (16:10 wide-format WXGA resolution)
Outline Dimension	270.5 x 180.0 x 4.5mm (thinnest area at 2.90mm)
Luminance	300cd/㎡
Weight	183ｇ

(via TMDisplay)

ResearchGroup: Rogers Research Group at UIUC

2006-05-21T11:29:00.000-04:00

ResearchGroup series today introduces Rogers Research Group, led by Dr. John A. Rogers, the Founder Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

From their website:

"Our current research focuses on soft materials for flexible ‘macroelectronic’ circuits, nanophotonic structures, microfluidic devices, and microelectromechanical systems. These efforts are highly multidisciplinary, and combine expertise from nearly every traditional field of technical study."

Research Topics:

Recent Highlights:

First flexible paper-like displays
Stamping techniques with nanometer resolution
A Stretchable Form of Single Crystal Silicon for High Performance Electronics on Rubber Substrates

See their group webpage (http://rogers.mse.uiuc.edu) for details.

Note: To suggest a research group working on flexible macroelectronics to this series of introduction, contact us.

Roll and Rock

2006-05-19T14:36:00.000-04:00

This is an electronic piano you can use with ease anywhere. Those musicians who travel a lot will definitely love this goody!

With keyboard less than 4 mm thick, total weight about only 1kg, this Hand Roll Piano with built-in speaker can be played up to 15 hours on 4 AA batteries and connected to a computer. It can be rolled up and fit in your backpack, and can spread out to a 1m long 61-key board.

The backbone of the keyboard is made of silicone rubber, which allows the keyboard to be rolled up and spreaded out many times without damage. While many ongoing high-tech flexible macroelectronics designs are also based on silicone rubber substrates, this rollable piano might be your first and most affordable flexible macroelectronic device with a MSRP only about $160. No wonder it is selected by the TIME magazine as one of the most amazing inventions of 2005.

Ready? Let's roll and rock!

Truly metallic polymers for flexible macroelectronics

2006-05-18T10:36:00.000-04:00

Stretchable interconnects are fundamental building blocks of flexible macroelectronics. Currently, thin metal films are widely used in electronic circuits as interconnects. Not like their bulk counterpart, however, such thin films of metal rupture at very small strain (<1%).>

One possible solution for stretchable interconnects might be conducting polymer. The first conducting polymer was discovered in 1977. Since then, enthusiasm has been gathering among scientists. As a result, several practical conducting polymers had become available by mid-1990s. Although these polymers are conductive, however, they are not truly metallic. For example, the hallmark of metallic conductivity—increasing conductivity as temperature decreases—has not been demonstrated by these conducting polymers at temperatures over the full range below room temperature.

Recently, Korea and US scientists made thin films of polyaniline that show both the optical and electrical properties characteristic of metals by a new technique ( self-stabilized dispersion polymerization (Nature 441, 65-68 (4 May 2006)). The polyaniline films produced by this new technique are more structurally ordered than those made by conventional methods. As a result, these new films show a two and half fold increase in conductivity as temperature decreases from room temperature to 4 Kelvin. Also the optical reflectivity of these polyaniline films fits that of a metal.

Although the conductivity of these polyaniline films is still about two orders of magnitude lower than that of typical metals, truly metallic polymers would potentially diversify possible applications of flexible macroelectronics.

For more details, read the Nature paper.

(Image credit: Lee et al.)

Book: Flexible Flat Panel Displays

2006-05-15T00:11:00.000-04:00

Title: Flexible Flat Panel Displays

Gregory Crawford, Brown University (Editor)
ISBN: 0-470-87048-6
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd in July 2005

This book includes 25 self-contained chapters exclusively covering the fundamentals and applications of flexible flat panel displays, written by internationally renowned researchers who are authorities in their respective fields.

Chapter list:

1 Flexible Flat Panel Display Technology
2 Engineered Films for Display Technologies
3 Flexible Glass Substrates
4 Barrier Layer Technology for Flexible Displays
5 Transparent Conducting Oxide Materials and Technology
6 Mechanics of ITO on Plastic Substrates for Flexible Displays
7 Stability of Externally Deformed ITO Films
8 Conductive Polymers
9 Mechanical Reliability of Conductive Polymers for Rollable Display Applications
10 Optical and Functional Coatings for Flexible Displays
11 Patterning Techniques and Semiconductor Materials for Flexible Electronics
12 Printed Organic Electronics
13 Rollable Active Matrix Displays with Organic Electronics
14 Mechanics of TFT Technology on Flexible Substrates.
15 OLED Displays on Plastic
16 Encapsulated Liquid Crystal Materials for Flexible Display Applications
17 Cholesteric Liquid Crystals for Flexible Displays
18 Paintable LCDs: Single-Substrate LCDs Produced by Photoenforced Stratification
19 Electrophoretic Imaging Films for Electronic Paper Displays
20 Gyricon Materials for Flexible Displays
21 Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing of Flexible Displays
22 High-Resolution Full-Color Flexible TFT LCDs Based on Amorphous Silicon
23 All-Plastic Color TFT LCDs Based on Low-Temperature Poly-Si
24 TFT Transfer Technology
25 Markets and Applications of Flexible Displays

Special issues of Proc. IEEE on Flexible Electronics Technology

2006-05-10T16:59:00.000-04:00

Proceedings of the IEEE, the flagship journal of IEEE, features two special issues on Flexible Electronics Technology (July and August 2005, edited by A. Nathan and B.R. Chalamala).

These two special issues provide a comprehensive review of research worldwide in flexible micro- and macroelectronics. The articles provide broad coverage across two major themes: large area electronics and systems (July 2005 issue, focused on devices, related fabrication techniques, and applications) and materials and manufacturing technology (August 2005 issue, including new materials, substrates, and manufacturing tools).

A partial list of the papers in these two issues is given below:

Special Issue on Flexible Electronics Technology, Part 1: Systems and Applications

Macroelectronics: Perspectives on Technology and Applications
Flexible Organic LED and Organic Thin-Film Transistor
Large Area Electronics Using Printing Methods
Progress Toward Development of All-Printed RFID Tags: Materials, Processes, and Devices
Printed Organic Semiconducting Devices
Realization of Flexible Plasma Display Panels on PET Substrates
…

Special Issue On Flexible Electronics Technology, Part 2: Materials And Devices

Reel to Real: Prospects for Flexible Displays
Low-Temperature Materials and Thin Film Transistors for Flexible Electronics
Flexible Conjugated Polymer-Based Plastic Solar Cells: From Basics to Applications
Toward Novel Flexible Display—Top-Emitting OLEDs on Al-Laminated PET Substrates
Stretchable Interconnects for Elastic Electronic Surfaces
…

Mechanics of flexible macroelectronics

2006-05-08T15:32:00.000-04:00

Flat-panel displays are rapidly replacing cathode-ray tubes as the monitors of choice for computers and televisions, a commercial success that has opened the era of macroelectronics, in which transistors and other micro-components are integrated over large areas. In addition to the flat-panel displays, other macroelectronic products include x-ray imagers, thin-film solar cells, and thin-film antennas.
Like a microelectronic product, a macroelectronic product consists of many thin-film components of small features. While microelectronics advances by miniaturizing features, macroelectronics does so by enlarging systems. Macroelectronic products today are mostly fabricated on substrates of glass or silicon; they are expensive, fragile and not readily portable when their areas are large. To reduce cost and enhance portability, future innovation will come from new choice of materials and of manufacturing processes. For example, thin-film devices on thin polymer substrates lend themselves to roll-to-roll fabrication, resulting in lightweight, rugged and flexible products. These macroelectronic products will have diverse architectures, hybrid materials, and small features. Their mechanical behavior during manufacturing and use poses significant challenges to the creation of the new technologies.

A recent review paper by Suo et al. describes ongoing work in the emerging field of research – mechanics of flexible macroelectronics, with emphasis on the mechanical behavior at the scale of individual features, and over a long time. The following topics have been discussed in the paper:

Why many macroelectronic systems will be organic/inorganic hybrid structures, and how they can be made flexible.
A way to realize stretchable electronics by using compliant thin-film patterns of stiff materials.
How to achieve high ductility of thin metal films on polymer substrates and fatigue of metal films subject to cyclic loads.
Cracking in brittle materials such as oxides, nitrides and amorphous silicon on polymer substrates.
Issues of interfacial debonding

References:

Crawford, G.P. (editor), 2005. Flexible Flat Panel Displays, Wiley, Hoboken, New York.
Nathan, A., Chalamala, B.R. (editors), 2005. Special Issues on Flexible Electronics Technology, Proc. IEEE 93, 1235-1510.
Z. Suo, J.J. Vlassak and S. Wagner, Micromechanics of macroelectronics. China Particuology 3, 321-328 (2005). (Check out the reference of this paper for a comprehensive list of recent literature related to the above research topics)

“Nano Skins” show promise as flexible electronics

2006-05-05T22:22:00.000-04:00

A team of researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has developed a new process to make flexible, conducting “nano skins” for a variety of applications, from electronic paper to sensors for detecting chemical and biological agents. The materials, which are described in the March issue of the journal Nano Letters, combine the strength and conductivity of carbon nanotubes with the flexibility of traditional polymers.

The team has developed a new procedure that allows them to grow an array of nanotubes on a separate platform and then fill the array with a soft polymer. When the polymer hardens, it is essentially peeled back from the platform, leaving a flexible skin with organized arrays of nanotubes embedded throughout. The skins can be bent, flexed, and rolled up like a scroll, all while maintaining their ability to conduct electricity, which makes them ideal materials for electronic paper and other flexible electronics, according to Pulickel Ajayan, the Henry Burlage Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

A pdf file of the Nano Letter paper is available at the Prof. Ajayan's group website.

Read the full news report here.

(Via www.rpi.edu)

Wal-Mart: a persistent push behind RFID technology

2006-05-03T21:48:00.000-04:00

Back in 2003, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, decided making RFID (radio frequency identification) mandatory to its top 100 suppliers. This decision single-handedly pushed RFID out into the public domain for discussion and adoption in a big way.

The company started implementing RFID since January 2005 after conducting pilot tests at its distribution centers in Dallas. At present around 100 Wal-Mart suppliers use RFID tags. Wal-Mart is continuing with its RFID tag initiatives by adding new uses for the supply chain technology and is getting more partners and suppliers to comply with its RFID mandates. Currently this retailing giant is upgrading their systems for another 200 of its suppliers to become RFID compliant by the end of 2006. It's expected that another 300 suppliers will be RFID-compliant by the end of 2007, bringing the total to 600.

Driven by the mandates issued by Wal-Mart and other European retailers, the RFID market in China reached 1.6 billion RMB Yuan in 2005 and strong growth is expected in the coming years. It's predicted that China would supply more than five trillion tags annually to Wal-Mart. In the coming years, China is also expected to become a large consumer market for RFID products as well. RFID technology would also be used in 2008 Olympics to be held in Beijing.

(Via RFID Gazette)

ResearchGroup: Display and Photonics Lab at Brown

2006-05-01T21:22:00.000-04:00

ResearchGroup series today introduces Display and Photonics Lab at Brown led by Prof. Gregory Crawford at Brown University.

From their website:

"The display lab focuses on liquid crystal and polymer materials for flat panel display, telecommunications and electro-optic applications. Before 1960, liquid crystals were virtually unknown. Today they are all around us: they are used for electronic displays in wristwatches, calculators, laptop computers, and are now beginning to penetrate into the large-area desktop computer market, threatening the century old domination of cathode-ray-tubes (CRT); they are also an important component in high-strength fibers; and they naturally occur in the cell membranes of many biological systems."

Research Projects:

Highlight

Prof. Crawford is the editor of a recent published book, "Flexible Flat Panel Displays” (Wiley-Europe, Chichester, 2005). "The book encompasses many chapters focused on the fundamentals and applications of flexible flat planel displays written by researchers who are authorities in their respective fields."

See their group webpage (http://display.engin.brown.edu/main/) for details.

Note: To suggest a research group working on flexible macroelectronics to this series of introduction, contact us.

ResearchGroup: Macroelectronics Group at Princeton

2006-04-30T21:46:00.000-04:00

All about Flexible Macroelectronics (AFM) starts today a series of introduction to the research groups around the world working on the fundamental sciences and the enabling technologies of flexible macroelectronics.

We inaugurate the series by introducing the Macroelectronics Group at Princeton University led by Prof. Sigurd Wagner in Department of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University.
From their group webpage:

"We were first to introduce silicon transistors on flexible foils of glass (1995) and steel (1997), and have a long record of developing transistor technology on organic polymer substrates. All of these are entering industrial use. We have been helping companies start their transistor-on-plastic programs. Our novel combinations of silicon thin film electronics with foils of plastic, metal or glass also are beginning to find application outside of macroelectronics, for example, in tunable high-precision optical filters, very-low pressure sensors, and microfluidic chips. "

Research Directions:

Thin-film silicon transistors on flexible substrates
Flexible, stretchable, deformable electronics
Surface microfluidics
Direct printing of electronic materials
Functional cells for macroelectronics

See their group webpage (http://www.princeton.edu/~wagner/) for details.

Note: To suggest a research group working on flexible macroelectronics to this series of introduction, contact us.

Review articles on Flexible Electronics

2006-04-28T13:22:00.000-04:00

The cover story of the April 2006 issue of Materials Today features Flexible Electronics. This issue also includes two review articles in this emerging field of research. Access to full text articles is free of charge at http://www.materialstoday.com.

Review Article:
Material challenge for flexible organic devices, by Jay Lewis (My favorite)

Review Article:
Organic and polymer transistors for electronics, by Ananth Dodabalapur

Cover Story:
Jet printing flexible displays, by R.A. Street et al.

Enjoy.

Organic LED could replace light bulb?

2006-04-28T09:52:00.000-04:00

Lighting accounts for about 22% of the electricity consumed in buildings in the United States, and 40% of that amount is eaten up by inefficient incandescent light bulbs. The search for economical light sources has been a hot topic.

Recently, scientists have made important progress towards making white organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) commercially viable as light source. As reported in a latest Nature article, even at an early stage of development this new source is up to 75% more fficient than today's incandescent sources at similar brightnesses. The traditional light bulb's days could be numbered.

The organic layers of OLED are only 10 nanometers thick, and transparent when turned off, they can be built as light-emitting ceilings or windows. Currently, the biggest barrier to large scale production of OLED is the high cost of the encapsulation layer to prevent the damage of moisture, commented by Stephen Forrest of the University of Michigan, the coauthor of the Nature article.

DARPA's vision on macroelectronics

2006-04-27T20:43:00.000-04:00

The above slide is from a great presentation on macroelectronics by Dr. Robert H. Reuss, Program Manager of DARPA's macroelectronics program. The vision of this program is:

"The goal of the Macroelectronics program is to develop novel form factor technologies with the potential for increasing the utility of electronic subsystems while at the same time offering significant cost reductions over the existing paradigm. In order to reach its goal, the Macroelectronics program will identify and develop innovative technology to fabricate distributed electronics based on thin film transistors (TFTs) and flexible substrates. "

For more details, check out their program webpage.

Philips unveils world's first prototype of rollable display

2006-04-25T21:30:00.000-04:00

In Sept. 2005, Polymer Vision, a company in Philips Technology Incubator released the world's first prototype of rollable electronic reader, READIUS™, which can unfold to a 5-inch display and roll back into a pocket-size (100×60×20 mm) device. See the news release for details.
A video demo is available here.

What is Flexible Macroelectronics?

2006-04-18T10:25:00.001-04:00

For over half of century, the technology of microelectronics has been advancing by miniaturization, leading to significant increases in computing power and continuous decreases in manufacturing cost. In parallel, remarkable progress on enlarging system scale in recent years gives rise to a nascent field known as macroelectronics, in which microelectronic devices are distributed yet integrated over large area substrates with sizes much bigger than semiconductor wafers.

Currently, the macroelectronics industry is dramatically growing in the similar way as the microelectronics was in early ’90s. The most visible example of macroelectronics at present is flat-panel displays, which have been rapidly replacing cathode-ray tubes as the monitors of choice for computers and televisions since 2000. The flat-panel displays have enabled applications unimaginable for cathode-ray tubes. For example, the Dolphins Stadium in Miami will soon have the world’s largest high definition video display, about 15 m high and 42 m wide, comprising more than 4.6 million light-emitting diodes, showing image of more than 1.5 million pixels. (Update on 27 July 2006: after only months Dolphin Stadium's HD display was installed, an even larger HD video display has been installed in Japan. See details in this AFM post. )

While the commercial success of flat-panel display opens an era of large area electronics, other emerging applications, such as rollable display, printable thin-film solar cell and electronic skin, demonstrate further desirable attributes for macroelectronic systems, including flexibility, portability and low-cost. To realize these attributes, a growing trend is to fabricate macroelectronic products directly on flexible substrates, such as polymers. The flat-panel displays currently available in market are fabricated on glass substrates and are fragile. A case in recent news is the cracking of the screens of the iPod nano, a music player that Apple expects to be its best-selling portable device. By contrast, displays made on thin polymer substrates are rugged. Flexible displays of large areas will be lightweight and can be rolled up – they will be portable. For example, in Sept. 2005, Philips Polymer Vision has revealed the world's first prototype of a rollable electronic reader, which can unfold to a 5-inch display and roll back into a pocket-size (100×60×20 mm) device. Furthermore, such thin-film devices on flexible polymer substrates can lend themselves to low-cost fabrication process (i.e., roll-to-roll printing), resulting in lightweight, rugged and flexible macroelectronic products.

All about Flexible Macroelectronics (AFM) aims to address the growing interests in the area of flexible macroelectronics. AFM web portal:

tracks both latest technological progress and ongoing scientific research on flexible macroelectronics;

serves as a platform to exchange information among people who are interested in this emerging technology;

stimulates interactions and collaborations among flexible macroelectronics industries and researchers in the field.

So , subscribe our RSS feed, and stay current with the flexible macroelectronics field. You can also choose to receive a daily update of All about Flexible Macroelectronics (AFM) to your email through subscription in the upper box of our side bar.
Want to be a contributor? Contact us.

All Posts in www.macroelectronics.org

2006-03-14T22:50:00.003-05:00

Research Groups and Centers

2006-03-14T22:30:00.000-05:00

last update: 30 June 2006

June 2006

May 2006

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Macroelectronics Group at Princeton

News from Academia

2006-03-14T22:26:00.001-05:00

News from Industry

2006-03-14T22:17:00.002-05:00

About

2006-03-14T14:02:00.001-05:00

Dear readers of www.macroelectronics.org:

Welcome to a World Top 100 Engineering Blog!
This is All about Flexible Macroelectronics !

What's for?

I founded www.macroelectronics.org in April 2006, several years after I started to work on flexible macroelectronics at Princeton University, and several months after I dived into the Web2.0 tech trend at Harvard University. I've been fascinated by the ever fast growth of the emerging field of flexible macroelectronics. While I get to know and enjoy the progress of flexible macroelectronics everyday via sources here and there, I realized there is no single place where both the technological progress and the scientific knowledge of the multiple fronts of this nascent area can be aggregated and accumulated. This is exactly the motivation that finally led me to launch www.macroelectronics.org.

Aiming to address the growing interests in flexible macroelectronics, www.macroelectronics.org web portal:

tracks both latest technological progress and ongoing scientific research on flexible macroelectronics;
serves as a platform to exchange information among people who are interested in this emerging technology;
stimulates interactions and collaborations among flexible macroelectronics industries and researchers in the field.

Who's behind?

I received a Ph.D. from Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University in March, 2006, after my earlier studies at Princeton University and Tsinghua University, China. I joined the faculty of Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland since August 2006.

My current research interests include mechanics of the micro/nano structures in flexible macroelectronics, innovative micro/nano scale patterns as general platforms for flexible macroelectronics, deformation instability of thin films and multilayers, and mechanics of biomembrane and cytoskeleton in the cells.

I'm also interested in exploring innovative strategies to enhance communications and foster collaborations using Web2.0 technologies. Besides editing www.macroelectronics.org, I am also one of the two architects of www.imechanica.org, a multiblog for international community of Applied Mechanics.

For more details of my research, visit my personal website at: http://LiT.umd.edu

I would like to thank all our subscribers and readers. Your support and participation have always been crucial for the fast growth of this web portal. Again, your comments are always welcome. If you want to join us as a contributor (or just want to make a post anytime), feel free to email me. I'm particularly grateful to Prof. Z. Suo at Harvard University, who has always been encouraging and supportive for me and for the growth of www.macroelectronics.org. I can learn something new every single time I talk to him.

Sincerely yours,

Teng Li
Editor@macroelectronics.org