TechBlick The Future of Electronics RESHAPED - Why You Should Join Us
We have prepared a world-class agenda for you, featuring over 70 superb invited talks from around the world, 12 industry- or expert-led masterclasses, 4 tours, and over 80 onsite exhibitors.
In this article, we discuss two themes of (1) Green and Sustainable Electronics and (2) Printing in Photovoltaics and Fuel Cells, highlighting talks, masterclasses and tours from the likes of Essemtec, imec, Holst Centre, Jiva Materials, RISE, VTT, ISC Konstanz, Fraunhofer ISE, Coatema, FOM Technologies, Panacol, etc
#GreenElectronics #CircularElectronics #AdditiveElectronics #BioBasedElectronicMaterials #FineLineMetallization #FuelCells #LIFT #PerovskiteSiTandemCells #CopperMetallization #SlotDieCoating #Repair #Jetting #FR4Alternative
In future articles, we will highlight more contributions on this theme as well as other key themes such as materials innovations, additive and 3D electronics, wearables and electronic textiles, volume manufacturing, etc. Stay tuned!
Sustainable, green, and circular economy
The first theme to be discussed is sustainable, green, and circular economy. This is a crucial driver for the additive electronics industry since additive processes can reduce material and energy consumption and enhance circularity vs. subtractive processes.
Essemtec will outline how their automatic repair tools with no human interaction enable repair of electronic components and thus promote a circular economy. This technique combines jetting with pick-and-place and quality control in a single machine. This is a key theme in sustainable electronics, leading to prolonged product lifespans, enhanced performance, and ability to correct production mistakes! You will also learn about specific examples showing how this technique is applied to PCBs and BGAs even with different solder alloys. This will be a very interesting talk.
Jiva Materials will outline their novel biodegradable water-soluble PCB laminate material, acting as an alternative to the incumbent fibreglass-epoxy rigid laminates. This new material containing natural fibers and non-brominated flame retardants has a 60% lower carbon footprint vs FR-4, whilst water solubility enhances end-of-life metal recovery without incineration. You will learn more about the properties and use cases of this novel FR-4 alternative in this talk
imec will present jointly with the Holst Centre, comparing the sustainability of traditional PCB technology vs. the additive printed electronic technology. This is an important work that goes beyond just consideration of the additive nature of printed electronics, examining also the role of application, operating environment, as well as offering insights on more detailed LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) and data collection for printed electronics. Finally, they discuss how PCB technology is also addressing its environmental drawbacks, potentially making it superior in this regard. This works pavs the way for a robust and reliable application-specific benchmarking of additive electronics vs traditional PCBs.
VTT will present a masterclass exploring the sustainability and circularity of the electronic industry (not just additive electronics). The class focuses on how the EU regulatory landscape is changing and how the electronic industry can improve its environmental footprint, shifting from fossil-based, critical and rare materials to renewable, bio-based and abundant materials, adopting additive vs subtractive manufacturing processes, and utilizing circular economy business models and electronic designs and manufacturing. This is an important class for anyone interested in green, sustainable and circular electronics.
RISE will also offer a masterclass, looking more specifically into (a) the role of bio-based materials and (b) additive manufacturing in achieving sustainable goals for the electronic industry. This class goes into more detail on emerging alternatives to the likes of PFAS, which are bio-based nature-inspired materials based on trees, plants, algae, etc. Furthermore, this class will explore how additive production minimizes waste and energy consumption, with specific examples drawn from flexible solar cells, PCBs, displays, and sensors.
Holst Centre will also give a masterclass, focusing specifically on the sustainable and circular aspects of additive and printed electronics. This talk in particular addresses some of the challenges involved with the end-of-life treatment of hybrid & printed electronics, including about how to recover materials and components if parts are fused together as is the case in in-mold electronics.
Printing in the photovoltaic and fuel cell industries
The second theme to be highlighted today is around printing in the photovoltaic and fuel cell industries!
Fraunhofer ISE will present a cutting-edge development, showing how they can print high-aspect ratio ultra-fine lines with a width of only 14 μm on thin and fragile silicon wafers. This is an important development that advances the art of fine line printing in mass production beyond current perceived limits in what is possibly the largest printed electronics market: printing photovoltaic metallization. We cannot recommend this talk strongly enough!
ISC Konstanz will present on adoption of screen-printed copper pastes for metallization of TopCon and IBC silicon photovoltaics, showing that the copper pastes can be a drop-in replacement for silver pastes (Ag inks). This is an important advancement of the art since the incumbent silver metallization is a major cost driver of the photovoltaic industry, and most attempts to develop alternatives have ended without major market success. Furthermore, ISC Konstanz will showcase ECAs with minimal amounts of Ag fillers to act as modulate-level interconnects to achieve lead-free solar modules.
Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH will discuss how printing and coating play a role in the direct and indirect coating of platinum catalyst on membranes or gas diffusion layers for fuel cells. In particular you can learn about the role of slot die coating as well as the role of LIFT (Laser Induced Forward Transfer) technology in digital fabrication of PEM fuel cells as well as laser drying. This is an important talk, showing how slot die and digital LIFT can bring printing into the Fuel Cell industry too.
FOM Technologies will show and discuss how slot die coating can enable the fabrication of perovskite-Si tandem solar cells, which can combine the efficiencies of both technologies and extend the efficiency beyond that reachable by the dominant Si technology alone. The choice and method of manufacturing is critical, and here you will learn about different options with an emphasis on why slot die coating offers a scalable and efficient solution even on non-flat surfaces.
Panacol will also join to present their adhesive solutions for both perovskite and organic solar cell technologies. The adhesive technology plays an independent role in enabling these technologies, both as ways to reliably and cost effectively attach barrier films, and also as means to achieve lead-free module-level interconnections.
Exhibition
Of course, the exhibition is the key place where you can find partners across the entire value chain, including equipment manufacturers, ink and paste formulators, printing houses, and more. This is the place to visit if you intend to develop, prototype, or manufacture with printed and/or flexible hybrid electronics.
There will be over 80 exhibitors from around the world. You can see the floor plan and learn about the exhibitors here.
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