1. Presentation
overview
20-11-2012
Large area flexible and stretchable electronics
enabling future products
Ex. SMART BLISTER
Kris Van de Voorde – I&I - imec Leuven
Jeroen van den Brand - Large area flexible and stretchable electronics

2. © Holst Centre < 2
Large area flexible electronics, manufacturing
One of the key challenges:
How to manufacture these products?
Large quantities and large sizes…
• roll-to-roll (R2R) manufacturing preferred
 easier to make large quantities at low costs
• to be build on low cost flex foils
 not on polyimide-foil: ~ 50 euro/m2
 but on PET-foil: ~ 3 euro/m2
Printing preferred over lithographic patterning
• easier for roll-to-roll processing
• fine features without complicated masks
But we cannot print everything…
• making large area flex „smart‟: integration of
conventional electronics needed
Jeroen van den Brand - Large area flexible and stretchable electronics

3. © Holst Centre < 3
Holst Centre: a solid partner in research
Holst Centre
• an independent, open innovation research institute having focus on large area
flexible electronics; specific emphasis on manufacturing technologies
• located at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, Netherlands
(8000 m2 cleanrooms, state-of-the-art facilities)
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Eindhoven
Life Sciences
2
 8000 m cleanroom OLED Device facilities
Processing Materials Analysis Düsseldorf
Photonics
Thin Film cleanroom
clean room
Aachen
Electronic EMC lab
measurement
Leuven
Reliability lab
Belgium
Holst
Offices
Equipment
Holst Electronic
Engineering
R2R lab Prototyping
Jeroen van den Brand - Large area flexible and stretchable electronics

4. © Holst Centre < 4
Holst Centre: a solid partner in research
• Independent, with reputed parents
 founded by imec (1300 fte, Belgium)
and TNO (4500 fte, The Netherlands)
 established in 2005
• Critical mass
 own staff 190; 25 nationalities
 70 „resident‟ researchers
• Characteristics
 bridging gap between industry and
academia: working on technologies that
will reach market in 3-5 years
 perform joint research with industrial
partners in Shared Research Programs
• Funding
 supported by both Dutch government
and industrial partners
Jeroen van den Brand - Large area flexible and stretchable electronics

5. © Holst Centre < 5
Industrial partners from across the value chain
Jeroen van den Brand - Large area flexible and stretchable electronics

6. © Holst Centre
Flexible
Smart Devices

7. © Holst Centre
Flexible Smart Device
Label or other foil based product
that contains some sensor functionality
and associated electronics
that can be read out wirelessly

8. © Holst Centre < 8
Large area flexible electronics at Holst Centre
flexible lighting (OLEDs) flexible solar cells intelligent food/pharma
manufacturing technologies to make
devices possible
special emphasis on roll-to-roll
• coating / printing of functional materials
(OLED/OPV) on large areas
• printing of conductive structures on foil
• lamination of foils and integrating chips
• patterning on/of foils (imprint, laser)
Jeroen van den Brand - Large area flexible and stretchable electronics

9. © Holst Centre < 9
Integration technologies
Technologies under development…
• integrating components with foils
• lamination and interconnection of foils
LED
thin chips
embedded chip
Jeroen van den Brand - Large area flexible and stretchable electronics

10. © Holst Centre < 10
Enabling future smart products: Smart Blister
Assembly, the next step, early 2012:
• move to single chip solution, dedicated ASIC
• integration as thin „bare die‟: easier foil handling, chip „hidden‟ in adhesive
thinning chip
down to 20-30 µm
without chip becomes
package flexible
fully operational, 30 μm thick
radio chip on PET foil
Jeroen van den Brand - Large area flexible and stretchable electronics

11. © Holst Centre
Trends in printed electronics
World’s first organic TFT microcontroller on a foil
(8 bit, 3000 transistors, running at 6 Hz) – ISSCC 2011

12. © Holst Centre
But it will take quite some time until we can print this…
Si IC technology still the Texas Instruments
most logical way to give MSP430
the large area flexible microcontroller
electronics product its
intelligence
16 bits, runs at 8 MHz, contains
clock, AD & DA convertors, memory,…
at a cost of down to 1-2 euro

13. © Holst Centre
Printing structures
printed passives
• electronic circuitry
(down to 50 um line/spacing)
• passives
• technologies
 inkjet printing
 (rotary R2R) screen printing
R2R infrastructure electronic circuitry
Holst Centre

14. © Holst Centre
Examples of what can be made with technologies
General purpose NFC-compatible flexible sensor label
- demonstrated to work with humidity, temperature, amine, ethylene
surface mounted
printed antenna
chips
printed battery
Holst Centre

15. © Holst Centre
Challenges of smart blister
• Assembled • Fully integrated
• “3D”-system • 2D-System in Foil
• High cost • Low cost, mass fabrication
• Added to existing package, • Roll to Roll compatible

16. © Holst Centre < 16
Enabling future smart products: Smart Blister
A good case for large area flexible electronics:
• label with electronics, to be „glued‟ onto existing blisters
• comparably large surface area (15 x 5 cm)
• large quantities needed at low cost (PET foils)
• simple electronic circuitry
• coarse pitch, can be printed
• single chip solution
dedicated ASIC
(integrated sensor,
radio, microcontroller)
breaklines for
antenna measuring pill push-through
battery
Jeroen van den Brand - Large area flexible and stretchable electronics

17. © Holst Centre
Proto-type
• Features
 3 chip solution (MC, RTC, NFC Eeprom)
 All electronics in footprint blister
 Printed resistance ladder
 Monitor when en what pill is pushed through
 NFC communication

18. © Holst Centre < 18
Enabling future smart products: Smart Blister
an essential ingredient:
the ‘Smart Blister’
• intelligent medicine blister
• registers/stores time and
date of pill push through
• wirelessly communicates
with doctor through
mobile phone
• team-up in Holst ecosystem
to develop blister
Jeroen van den Brand - Large area flexible and stretchable electronics

19. © Holst Centre
Examples of what can be made with technologies
health monitoring functionality,
integrated into a low cost, disposable foil-based patch
embedded chips (thickness 20 µm)
self-adhering
fine pitch Cu-on-PET circuitry
Holst Centre

20. © Holst Centre
Summary
• Classical electronics and foil technology meet in flexible integrated
smart systems
 Sensor enabled RFID “labels” are based on classic technologies
 Sensors simple time temperature, humidity
 Printed electronics lacks computing power
 Little effort on integration on system level
• Hybrid integration
 Printed circuitry has advantages over Cu: Integrated manufacturing
possible
 Classical components can be bonded reliable to PET
 Sensors developed on Si can be transferred to foil
• Technology allows for production ready NFC labels
 Smart Blister
 Smart Label
• Outlook: electronics will disappear entirely into the substrate

21. CMSTCentre
© Holst – stretchable electronics
-7x8 Led matrix designed for testing and developing the technology
- functional samples are used as demonstrators