Printed Electronics Standards Shape Innovation

Imagine flexible Organic Light-Emitting Diodes (OLED) surfaces in your living room – glowing curtains and wallpaper that illuminates your hallway instead of traditional lighting. Or what if low-cost solar cells came integrated into your car and house windows? Although not yet available commercially, the technology is rapidly evolving.

Unless you’re an engineer, you probably have no idea what goes into manufacturing these novel innovations in printed and flexible electronics, much less what it takes to bring the technology to mass production. As increasingly important technologies rely on recent advances in printed electronics, it’s more important than ever to set technology standards that bring reliability, dependability, and quality to next-generation electronics poised to change the world – ubiquitous electronics in everything we touch.

Check out the Gartner hype cycle curve. Flexible and printed electronics products have finally achieved a valid level of performance. In fact, IDTechEx claims the market for printed, flexible and organic electronics will grow from $16.04 billion in 2013 to $76.79 billion in 2023. Just look at blood-glucose diabetes test strips, which are great examples of low-cost printed electronics biosensors that constitute a multi-billion dollar industry. But without manufacturing industry guidelines and standards, inferior materials and processes might impede the growth and stability of this important technology. Standards play a pivotal role in shaping electronics innovation.

What it Takes to Set Standards for Printed and Flexible Electronics

The IPC is a global electronics industry trade organization and a leading source for industry standards, training, market research, and public policy advocacy. Its technology committees actively evaluate materials and processes that consumers take for granted in their electronics products. But what thinking goes into setting these standards and why are they important? Global paying IPC members evaluate industry requirements and then choose technologies for which committees will develop standards, helping industry adoption by establishing a robust supply chain without stifling innovation.

The standards teams make important decisions, from providing suggested methods to materials companies like DuPont, Corning, Nippon Mektron, etc. for identifying accepted material characterization techniques, to creating supply chain engineering practices that ensure suppliers provide high-quality materials. And by putting all materials on an equal playing field, standards help product designers select the most appropriate materials based on cost, operating temperature, transparency, and numerous other specifications. As a result, designers can focus on creating highly desirable products like capacitive touch control panels for human-machine interfaces.

Jabil’s Dan Gamota, director of advanced technology, has deep experience with technology roadmaps and standards development. In fact, he is currently leading the IPC standards subcommittees focused on publishing the most important standards necessary for technology diffusion into the market. The team has an important role along the innovation pipeline: help cost-effectively transition printed and flexible electronics research projects into commercially available high volume products for industries such as medical, automotive, aerospace, industrial and energy.

Dan’s team of more than 75 international subject matter experts evaluates and sets standards on materials and processes for innovations like flexible glass and electrically functional visually appealing housings durable enough to withstand current and future flexible and printed electronics manufacturing processes and consumer use.

So, yes, they’re setting design guidelines and standards for materials, processes and reliable performance that will influence what our electronic devices will be made from today and in the not-too-distant future. Their work underpins printed and flexible electronics innovations as they pass through the Trough of Disillusionment on their way to the Plateau of Productivity.

Invisible to most consumers who enjoy the benefits of blood glucose test strips today and flexible smart devices tomorrow; teams of engineers from the world’s largest electronics companies develop important standards that ultimately determine how electronics are made. They quietly but powerfully move printed and flexible electronics innovation forward. What future products might develop as new materials become standardized and characterized? Chances are, Dan’s team is already evaluating them.