Our aim is to establish innovative, industrially viable integration technology solutions and manufacturing routes for flexible and conformable ‘printed electronics’. The key applications for the developments can be found in the areas of flexible sensor foils, communicative packaging, OLED lighting and organic photovoltaics.

Lamination and interconnection of functional foils is an important research theme. This allows the creation of complex electronic systems which cannot be built on single substrates. Microvia technology is used to electrically interconnect the different foils. These processes can for example be used to laminate a driver foil onto an OLED foil or a flexible battery onto a communicative package.

Another important research theme is embedding of inorganic components in flexible foils. For example, technologies and processes are being developed which allows the embedding of ultrathin (20 µm thick) Si-based chips, bare LEDs and photodiodes. These technologies are being used to integrate microprocessors, sensor chips and passive components into foils.

In addition to the development of these technologies, the collaborative research projects also focus on novel manufacturing processes including fast roll-to-roll chip placement and self-assembly of foils.

The program team blends the strengths of both academic and industrial worlds. Its efforts are knowledge-driven but have a clear focus on addressing real-world issues. Process scalability (R2R manufacturing), and control as well as device reliability are key drivers.