European funding for Organic Semiconductors

PolyApply is an EU funded consortium aimed at creating sensor and RFID tags in an in-line manufacturing process at a fundamentally different cost structure than current solutions. The focus is on organic semiconductors to achieve this. This pre-competitive environment includes over twenty companies.

 

The project aims at scalability over a medium to long term, rather than proposing soltuions for a certain generation of RF devices. As a result, the developed technologies are expected to lead to an extendable family of products, from RFID tags to smart labels and packaging with displays, sensors, re-writeable memory etc.

Communication between objects as well as between objects and people allows for an unprecidented level of automation and improvement in efficiency. For example, imagine supply chains where products tell you if they are being shipped to the wrong place or warn the consumer from using them if they have expired. This means ultimately putting an electronic device on every item - resulting in a demand of 10 trillion such devices a year (replacing all barcodes). Such devices with sensors and displays can go further by providing diagnostics and information. However, the cost of silicon prevents it from being used in such circumstances. The cost of the cirucit shouldn't be much more than the cost of the inks, like a barcode. This is the market that printed electronics can tackle.

Interested parties can find out more information from the PolyApply website. Membership (which is free of charge) is also encouraged. See www.polyapply.org for details.