The document discusses the potential for flexible electronics to enable truly wearable and ubiquitous ("everywhere-able") technologies. It outlines challenges facing wearables like design, comfort and utility that have led many users to abandon their devices. Flexible electronics could help by allowing fully integrated, lightweight and shatterproof displays, sensors and systems directly on clothing and everyday objects. The company FlexEnable is introduced as uniquely positioned to enable this with its thin, bendable transistors and capabilities to integrate flexible displays and sensors into entire systems on plastic. Partnerships are discussed to build new supply chains combining flexible electronics with textiles and usher in a new generation of wearables and ambient interactive technologies.
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Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
1. Truly Flexible Electronics for
Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Indro Mukerjee
Chairman , FlexEnable Ltd.
Printed Electronics Europe, 2015
2. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Technology embedding further into our lives……….
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Everywhere-ables = wearable technology for our environment
- furthering the reach of electronics into our lives
Technology must be Flexible, Bendable, Formable, Robust
https://devcentral.f5.com/articles/oh-is-that-the-internet-youre-wearing
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2496611/personal-technology/why-your-clothes-need-a-mobile-upgrade.htm
Wearables
• On body
• In clothes
Everywhere-ables
• On surfaces and everyday objects
3. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Wearable Technology is the obvious next step……….
In our rooms In our bags /
carried
In our pockets On our bodies
In our clothes
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4. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Wearable technology is not new…
• Wearable technology has been around for many years…
• …and function ultimately adapts to fashion / social norms
http://www.tie-a-tie.net/blog/the-evolution-of-the-necktie/
Functional Tie
(Croatian, 17th Century)
Fashion Tie
(21st Century)
Example:
The Neck Tie
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6. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Challenges remain: 9 criteria needed to drive
sustainable adoption1
1 - http://endeavourpartners.net/assets/Endeavour-Partners-Wearables-and-the-Science-of-Human-Behavior-Change-Part-1-January-20141.pdf
Selectability / Adoptability
Design / Aesthetics
Out-of-Box / Setup Experience
Fit / Comfort / Form Factor
Quality / Robustness
User Experience
API / Integratability
Lifestyle Compatibility
Overall Utility
50% of US consumers who have
owned a wearable no longer
use it (33% stopped within 6
months of receiving it)1
https://consumerinnovationadoption.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/will-
you-stick-by-your-wearables/
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7. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Challenges remain: 9 criteria needed to drive
sustainable adoption1
1 - http://endeavourpartners.net/assets/Endeavour-Partners-Wearables-and-the-Science-of-Human-Behavior-Change-Part-1-January-20141.pdf
Selectability / Adoptability
Out-of-Box / Setup Experience
API / Integratability
Flexible electronics plays a key enabling
role in at least 6 of these criteria
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8. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Flexible Electronics: a route to sustained behaviour change
• Flexible displays and sensors unlock a step change in available
utility for wearable devices
• Daily mobile phone charging is now a habit like brushing teeth
• This habit-forming behaviour change enabled by exceptional utility
• Wearables can offer the same – flexible electronics is key
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10. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
A uniquely enabling technology…
• The most significant new transistor and flexible electronics platform in decades-
based on high performance Organic Thin Film Transistor (OTFT)
• Enables true flexibility, bendability and unbreakability, for displays, sensors & entire
electronics systems on plastic
• Fully industrialised and suitable for all high volume display (LCD,OLED,EPD) & sensor
technologies
……launching a spectacular future for flexible electronics
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11. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
…and exciting capabilities have already been created.
Capacitors
Inductors
Resistors
Chip-on-Plastic
Test & Qualify
Transistor
platforms
Flex OLED
Flex Image
Sensor
LOGIC
Fingerprint
Sensor
Flex EPD
Plastic LCD
Vias
Multilayer stack
Substrate
Handling
• Our capabilities enable all
mainstream display
technologies and sensor
technologies to become
flexible – all demonstrated
• Our capabilities can be
integrated into entire
systems on plastic
• We can rapidly produce new
designs and prototypes with
our prototype line
Ingredients Capabilities
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12. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
We have the enabling capabilities – Activating Surfaces
Plastic LCD –
announced
February 2015 –
partnership with
Merck
Flexible EPD – in
production today
via partner Plastic
Logic Germany
Flexible OLED –
announced March
2014 – in
partnership with
Novaled
System on Plastic
– Programmable
Printed Logic
Circuits combined
with displays
Flexible Image
sensor - enables
medical imaging
& gesture control
(ISORG)
Biometric Sensors
and Systems on
Plastic – label-thin
high performance
area sensor arrays
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13. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Textile-thin electronics
0.25mm
Transistor Bend Radius
Wraps around a matchstick
25µm
Substrate Thickness
As thin as a human hair
100gsm
Weight per area
As light as a sheet of paper
60 Hz OLED/LCD
Flexible full motion video
As thin as a human hair
Low Cost
Lowest cost for all areas
and surfaces
Shatterproof
Rugged displays and
sensors
• FlexEnable electronics technology as thin, light, shatterproof, flexible as
textiles today
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14. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Building Flexible Supply Chains for Wearables
• Enabling materials, product and manufacturing companies
to accelerate their route to volume and facilitate new
supply chains
• Enables rapid prototyping and evolution kits for flexible
displays, sensors and new product concepts for wearables
and Everywhere-ables.
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15. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
A tale of two industries – with no previous overlap
• We are partnering with materials, product, manufacturing companies
Flexible
Electronics
Textiles & Clothing
Designers &
Manufacturers
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16. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
A Roadmap to fully integrated smart clothing wearables
Removable EmbeddedSeparate
Flexible electronics
Textiles and clothing
Level of integration
clip; belt; etc.
As two industries increasingly overlap
velcro; magnet;
zip
sewn-in
washable
foldable
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17. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
A Roadmap to fully integrated smart clothing wearables
Removable
Washable
Embedded
Zipped
Velcro-attached
Magnetic-attached
Sewn-in
Foldable
Separate
Head-set
Strap
Clip-on
Improving quality, robustness and lifestyle compatibility needs truly
flexible, wrappable and foldable electronics
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18. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Example: Gesture-controlled Smart Sleeve – System on Plastic
Sports jacket
flexible display
Flexible light sensors
Flexible curved display
• Light, thin, curved display, gesture-
controllable in all conditions
• Lightweight, glass-free makes
magnetic attachment effective and
reliable
• Can be easily removed for washing
the garment, or transferring to
another
• Option to add wireless charging
within the fabric of the jacket itself
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19. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Everywhere-ables
• Embedding technology into the world around us
• Conforming technology to our world, not the other way round.
• Activating surfaces – for sensing and displaying data
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20. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Keeping the technology under the surface………..
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21. Truly Flexible Electronics for Wearables and Everywhere-ables
Tailor-made electronics for wearables & everywhere-ables
• We must work together to build new supply chains
• FlexEnable launching a Wearable Technology Lab to provide rapid
prototype services & validate applications for flexible electronics
We invite you to talk to us
FlexEnable can help you with your Wearables & Everywhere-ables design,
prototypes and building volume supply chains
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