Calendar

Development of Flexible Printed Electronics Platform

Dr. TseNga(Tina) Ng is a Senior Research Scientist with the Electronic Materials and Device Laboratory at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). She joined PARC in 2006, and since then her research has focused on flexible electronics. Her work on printed systems has received the 2012 Innovation Award from FlextechAlliance and has been named Runner-up for the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award. In 2014, her interdisciplinary research and collaboration with academia have been recognized by the National Academy of Engineering Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Grant. Tina received her M.S. and Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Cornell University, NY, USA, working with Professor John Marohnon the development of force measurement techniques, such as cantilever magnetometryand electric force microscopy, to study nanoscale phenomena in thin-film semiconductors.

Digital, additive printing of electronic materials allows rapid, highly customizable fabrication, and low-cost printed electronics are compelling for internet-of-things applications that require large volume of distributed devices, such as in sensor networks and smart packaging. With the recent improvements in solution electronic inks, it is now possible to build independent sensor systems out of printed thin-film devices. Notably, the printing process is compatible with many substrates ranging from plastics to fibers, to potentially integrate electronics on any surface. At Palo Alto Research Center, I have developed processes for printed electronics that enable new form factors and applications in flexible sensors and actuators. Some examples include bendable medical x-ray imagers and integrated sensor tags. These applications required development of both individual device components as well as system integration.

In this talk, I will present the advantages and limitations of printed devices, and then discuss how to integrate the individual components together. There are two progressive printing approaches: simple systems (<100 transistors) are inkjet printed entirely from solution electronic inks, whereas more complex functions are met by printing interconnects between silicon ICs and printed passive components, to combine the advantages of flexible printed devices with the high performance of silicon chips. I will discuss the design rules we learned in the course of developing a fully printed sensor platform and the approaches to achieve designs that tolerate the variations in printed devices. Both device structures and system-level view of printing are considered, in order to improve the reliability of the processes and accelerate the development of flexible electronics.