FlexTech Alliance awards joint contract to PARC, Thinfilm, University of California, Berkeley

(Nanowerk News) PARC, a Xerox company, today announced that it -- along with Thin Film Electronics ASA ("Thinfilm") and UC Berkeley -- has been awarded a 12-month contract from the FlexTech Alliance to develop flexible, lightweight, printed integrated sensor systems comprising logic and memory. The initial project will concentrate on measuring temperature and blood oxygen content. In the longer term, it will pave the way toward printed sensing platforms to monitor humidity, light, pressure, sound, and gas.
Applications of these sensors will include radiation tags, disposable medical sensors, pharmaceuticals tags to read and track temperature during shipping, and food tags, which help determine spoilage and contamination, among other uses.
Janos Veres, PARC program manager who is leading the FlexTech Alliance contract commented, "This contract marks the next phase in printed electronics -- systems integration. This team of PARC, Thinfilm and UC Berkeley has created many types of printed electronics circuits and components, and this work will focus on the compatibility between components to create whole systems, so that many things can be measured and recorded, ultimately making printed sensors smarter."
PARC brings to the project one of the broadest printed electronics circuit and device libraries with over a decade of experience in printed electronics device design and prototyping. PARC has investigated a wide number of materials and device types (including transistors, memories, batteries, and sensors), with a focus on ink-jet printed field-effect transistors for complementary circuitry, and the creation of integrated printed electronic systems. Most recently PARC and Thinfilm demonstrated a printed addressing circuit for printed memory.
Projects funded by the FlexTech Alliance are vetted by the FlexTech Technical Council, a panel of seasoned technologists from companies such as Lockheed Martin, Qualcomm, E Ink, Applied Materials, Dupont Teijin Film and the US Army Research Lab.
About the FlexTech Alliance
The FlexTech Alliance is the only organization headquartered in North America exclusively devoted to fostering the growth, profitability and success of the electronic display and the flexible, printed electronics supply chain. FlexTech Alliance offers expanded collaboration between and among industry, academia, government, and research organizations for advancing displays and flexible, printed electronics from R&D to commercialization. To this end, the FlexTech Alliance, based in San Jose, Calif., will help foster development of the supply chain required to support a world-class, manufacturing capability for displays and flexible, printed electronics.
About PARC
PARC, a Xerox company, is in the Business of Breakthroughs®. Practicing open innovation, we provide custom R&D services, technology, expertise, best practices, and intellectual property to Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies, startups, and government agencies and partners. We create new business options, accelerate time to market, augment internal capabilities, and reduce risk for our clients. Since its inception, PARC has pioneered many technology platforms -- from the Ethernet and laser printing to the GUI and ubiquitous computing -- and has enabled the creation of many industries. Incorporated as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox in 2002, PARC today continues the research that enables breakthroughs for our clients' businesses.
Source: PARC