1. Opportunities and challenges in printed
electronics production
Wim Christiaens, PhD, R&D Director
Printed Electronics Europe conference
Berlin, April 27-28, 2016

2. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Outline
Introduction to Quad Industries
Printed Electronics
Introduction to IoT
Quad Industries: vision & roadmap
Printed batteries
Temperature logger
Smart shoe insoles

3. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Quad Industries
 Core business: User interfaces/control panels
Printed Electronics
 Founded in year: 1997
 Annual sales: EUR 5 mln.
 2 production sites
Quad Belgium, Sint-Niklaas
• > 20 employees
Quad Slovakia, Žilina – Bytčica
• > 60 employees
 Internet: www.quad-ind.com

4. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Quad Industries
 Core business (I): User interfaces/control panels
Membrane switches
Overlays & foils
Capacitive touch
Piezo touch
- screen printing and digital printing
- domed foils
- backlight integration
LED/EL backlighting – EMC
shielding – embossing
– silicone switches
Capacitive switches P-Cap
touch screens
- software enhanced piezo touch
- Aito Chip
- haptic feedback
- transparent switches,
sliders and wheels
- customisable cover glass
- single/multi touch
- rotating, pinching, sliding
- customisable cover glass
- optical bonding in clean room

5. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Quad Industries
 Background technology: electronic assembly
PCB assembly
- several pick & place machines
- manual and semi-automatic stencil printers
for paste and glue printing
- automatic reflow ovens
- vapour-phase soldering system
- wave-soldering
- optical stereo viewers
- AOI
Cable assembly
- Flatcables, data cables
- Power cables, signal cables
- Coaxial cables
- Complex cable harnesses

6. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Quad Industries
 Core business (II): printed electronics
‘Printed electronics’ is very old technology…
 membrane keyboards were the first printed electronic products
 Quad has over 30 years experience in printed electronics
… but many new applications are emerging!!!
 Quad Industries builds on existing technology platform
 screen printing
 component assembly
 integration technologies
 laser & die cutting
to produce a new range of products

7. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
IoT
 Internet-of-Things / Internet-of-Everything
network of physical objects or "things" embedded with electronics, software, sensors
and connectivity to enable it to achieve greater value and service
= every object becomes ‘smart’, gathers and shares information with each other and
the cloud
things to be connected to the internet by 2020
• 25 Billion (source: Gartner)
• 50 Billion (source: Cisco)
• 200 Billion (source: Intel)

8. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
IoT
 Applications are everywhere
 Few examples:
Home and building automation: Nest Learning Thermostat
Automotive: maintenance monitoring, fuel and mileage management, driver security
Smart cities/public transportation: London iBus system
(source: http://datasciencebe.com/)

9. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
IoT
 Another example: healthcare
(source: freescale.com/healthcare)

10. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
IoT
 Drivers of the IoT revolution are a combination of:
 omnipresent connectivity
 low-cost sensors
 microelectronics that allow almost anything to be
connected
 smartphone, with ability to scan bar codes or RFID tags

11. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Printed electronics
 Definition
Printed electronics = manufacturing of electronics by standard printing processes
 Advantages
 Lightweight, flexible substrates:
• PET
• coated paper
• textiles
 Low-cost + low ecological footprint
• Additive manufacturing
• No (etching) chemicals
• Less process steps
 Quad Industries’ technology platform
 precision, fine-pitch screen-printing
• interconnection / circuitry
• printed functionality
 component assembly on foil

12. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
printed foil
sensors
energy
storage
energy
harvesting
electronicsdisplay
actuators
memory
communi-
cation
• temperature
• humidity
• cap sensor
• photodetector
• piezoresistive
• piezoelectric
• gas
• bio: glucose, lactate
• RFID
• NFC
• Bluetooth low energy
• electrochromic
• OLED
• printed battery
• OPV
• MEMS
• passives
• active components
• discrete or organic TFT
• substrate: PET / paper / textiles / metal / glass
• screenprint
• fine pitch
• cond ink: nano / stretchable / transparent
• component assembly
• piezo
component integration direct integration
• printed memory
• integrated component
Vision / roadmap

13. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
 Cornerstones of the implementation of the roadmap:
 Partnerships
• Technology partners:
 Example: Enfucell for printed battery technology
• Collaborative Research or Development projects
 bilateral or funded research projects
• Example: EU-FP7 Terasel, Horizon2020 INREP, IWT Met@Link,..
 product development
• customers are partners!
• from prototype to volume production
• Example: temperature logger / smart textile insole
 Investments
• New capabilities
• Increase capacity
 Current situation: < 10k pcs
 Short term focus: 10K <> 250K pcs
 Medium term focus: 100K <> 5mln pcs
Vision / roadmap

14. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Printed battery technology
 Quad Industries is new licensee for manufacturing Enfucell SoftBattery®
 enables to manufacture full range of custom designed and integrated batteries
 Technology
 All-printed power source
 Flexible and thin
 ECO-friendly materials
 On foil integration
 Capacity of few mAh per cm2
 Suitable for BLE or NFC enabled applications

15. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Temperature logger
 Smart disposable tag, with
Integrated temperature logger
NFC antenna
Printed battery
 Application:
Item-level monitoring of temp sensitive products
Medical and pharmaceutical field
 Development of NXP together with Enfucell

16. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Temperature logger
 Hybrid electronics on thin PET foil
Printed electronics:
• NFC antenna
• Interconnections
• Printed battery
 low-cost, large scale production, flexible,
disposable
Semiconductor technology
• NXP temp sensor
 ultra-low power consumption, high precision,
miniaturized (memory, NFC comm, temp sensor)
 Manufactured in Quad Industries facilities
NHS3100
Printed battery
NFC antenna

17. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Smart shoe insole (I)
 Development in collaboration with ATO Gear
 Product: ARION
 printed pressure sensitive insole the fits underneath existing insole of running shoe
 in combination with Bluetooth transmitter to connect to mobile devices for real-time feedback
 Technology
 printed, force sensitive resistor (FSR) technnology
 8 embedded pressure sensors
• placed at strategic locations
 design, build-up and materials
optimised for optimal sensor
responsiveness and reliability
 Fully integrated solution
 Flexible and thin

18. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Smart shoe insole (I)
 Development in collaboration with ATO Gear
 Product: ARION
 printed pressure sensitive insole the fits underneath existing insole of running shoe
 in combination with Bluetooth transmitter to connect to mobile devices for real-time feedback
 Application
 gait-analysis + analysis of running technique

19. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Smart shoe insole (I)
 Development in collaboration with ATO Gear
 Product: ARION
 printed pressure sensitive insole the fits underneath existing insole of running shoe
 in combination with Bluetooth transmitter to connect to mobile devices for real-time feedback
 Application
 gait-analysis + analysis of running technique
 Market intro
 professional athletes
 specialist retailers (RunnersWorld, Run2Day)
 Mass-market launch planned for late summer

20. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Smart shoe insole (II)
 Development in collaboration with medilogic®
 Application:
insole for Wireless Dynamic Pressure Measurement
during rehabilitation or training
 Technology
Ag & carbon printed capacitive sensor on textile
14 sensor areas
 Fully integrated solution
 Flexible and thin

21. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
EU-FP7 TERASEL project
Thermoplastically deformable circuits for
embedded randomly shaped electronics
 Funded under: 7th FWP (Seventh Framework Programme)
 Start date: 01/10/2013
 Duration: 3 years
 Partners:

22. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
EU-FP7 TERASEL project
Fabrication of flat electronic circuit boards in a conventional way
using industrial processes
Embedding these circuits into thermoplastic polymers
(Thermo)forming these circuits into 2.5 D / 3D shapes
+ additional polymer application (injection moulding)
High pressure
forming
Screen printing on
thermoplastic
polymers

23. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
EU-FP7 TERASEL project
 Quad Industries demonstrator
Replacement of the ‘classical’ mechanical turning knob by 3D touch-wheel
button (a version without moving parts)
A rotating movement with the fingertips is converted into the required
signal (pulses)
 Challenges
Material selection
Build-up
Electronic design
• 3D, stretched capacitive slider
• Electronics

24. Printed Electronics – 27/04/2016 – Wim. Christiaens@quad-ind.com
Conclusions
Quad Industries has…
 over 30 years of experience in Printed Electronics for membrane switch / user
interface market
 a strong focus on co-development of new emerging applications of Printed
Electronics, based on
existing technology platform and competences in the field of screen printing, assembly,
engineering
development of new capabilities and new technologies
 a strong network and is open for further partnerships
• technology partnership
• bilateral or funded research projects
• product development from prototype to volume production

25. Thank you for your attention!!
Feel free to join us on our booth, C02,
to discover more of our products