IDTechEx Announce the Winners of the Printed Electronics 2007 Awards

SAN FRANCISCO—557 delegates from 18 countries were present at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA event in San Francisco - the industry’s largest conference and exposition on the topic.

The show featured the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Awards in recognition of outstanding achievement. The awards were presented by Dr Peter Harrop CEO of IDTechEx at a gala dinner held at The Bank of America Building in downtown San Francisco on November 13.

Categories and winners:

1. Technical Development Materials Award Winner: Kovio

2. Technical Development Manufacturing Award Winner: Optomec

3. Technical Development Device Award Winner: Add-vision

4. Best New Product Development Award Winner: HelioVolt

5. Best Commercialization Award Winner: Elumin8

6. Printed Electronics USA champion: Andy Hannah, CEO, Plextronics

Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman of IDTechEx and one of the judges, commented, “Compared to the last IDTechEx awards, the entries this year highlight how quickly the industry is developing, with more entries covering commercial products and significant technical developments. The entries have been outstanding.”

Kovio was awarded with the Technical Development Materials Award after achieving outstanding material mobility from an ink-jet printed thin-film transistor (TFT). The company has invented a printed electronics material and printed semiconductor process combining of printable silicon, dielectric, doped silicon, metal and insulator inks - that enables the world’s first all-printed silicon high performance TFT. Kovio has demonstrated low cost ink-jet printed silicon TFTs with mobility of 80 cm2/Vs - significantly exceeding the performance of previously demonstrated all-printed TFT devices using organic and other inorganic semiconductors. The breakthrough provides a new axis for innovation and applications that will transform the silicon-based semiconductor industry.

Optomec has won the Technical Development Manufacturing Award for their M3D Aerosol jet deposition system that will be used for high volume printing of collector lines on solar cells. The M3D system is a fine feature, non-contact printed electronics solution for solar cell manufacturers that can print narrower lines with higher yields. Recently, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) demonstrated that M3D Aerosol Jet can produce more efficient solar cells using versions of commercial screen printing pastes. On average, the M3D printed cells were 0.7% more efficient than screen printed cells - reaching a maximum efficiency of 18.3% when combined with Light Induced Plating and Annealing. For this volume production application, Optomec has developed a high throughput 40-nozzle Aerosol Jet deposition head that prints a solar cell every 2.5 to 3 seconds. The non-contact nature of the M3D Aerosol Jet system enables high yield printing on thinner photovoltaic wafers.

Dave Ramahi, President and CEO of Optomec states, “We are honored to be recognized for our development of a printed electronics manufacturing system for the production of higher efficiency solar cells. We believe that solar cell manufacturing is just the first of many printed electronic application areas where M3D Aerosol jet printing will provide breakthrough production capabilities.”

Add-Vision wins the Technical Development Device Award. The award was conferred upon Add-Vision for demonstrating clear advancements in all-printed P-OLED display technology. The company has developed a technology that offers the attractive display characteristics of OLED displays on flexible substrates, while maintaining the manufacturing flow, tools and low start up costs of conventional printing.

Matthew Wilkinson, Add-Vision’s President & CEO responded, “I am proud that Add-Vision has been recognized by IDTechEx for its leadership in printed P-OLED display technology.” Devin MacKenzie, Add-Vision’s Director of Technology added, “Our approach has been to use cutting-edge materials and manufacturing-oriented process development to enable near term realization of the potential of organic and printed electronics. We have been very active with internal R&D work, pilot product development and collaborations with our materials suppliers and manufacturing partners.”

Elumin8 wins the Best Commercialization Award. In 2003, Elumin8 started to develop large electroluminescent lamps for outdoor advertising. Prior to this time, EL lamps had been widely used in avionic, military, automotive, marine and commercial displays where the total area of a single backlight rarely exceeded 100-200 cm2. By contrast, Elumin8 developed large format EL lamps working on how to scale up the technology to larger sizes, ink technology, lamp morphology, power and control requirements. Today, Elumin8’s describe their EL poster as “an industry standard” that is offered by global media companies to their blue-chip clients.

“Elumin8 is delighted to win the Best Commercialisation Award. It’s great that IDTechEx has recognised Elumin8’s international commercialisation of the technology. It is an endorsement of our collaborations with Academia and continued investment in R&D.” He continues, “We now sell these displays in 15 countries and these exports currently account for over 70% of our turnover.” This year will see Elumin8 expanding into North America and consolidating its position in Asia.

HelioVolt win the Best New Product Development Award. In the face of silicon shortages and continued solar cost issues, HelioVolt’s proprietary FASST™ manufacturing process offers a rapid, low-cost method for printing CIGS photovoltaic coatings. After raising $101 million in its recent Series B funding, HelioVolt Corporation is now commercializing its proprietary manufacturing process and is nearing completion of planning for its first production facility beginning operations in 2008 in the US. HelioVolt is also planning expansion production facilities with manufacturing partners abroad to print CIGS thin film photovoltaics for both conventional modules and integration into building construction materials at commercial scale beginning in 2009.

“The field of printed electronics is poised to radically expand the electronics market in new and disruptive ways, and IDTechEx is well versed in the most significant and innovative developments in this sector,” said HelioVolt CEO BJ Stanbery, Ph. D. “Thus it is a great honor to be recognized with this Best New Product Development Award as we begin to apply the FASST reactive transfer printing process to the manufacture of commercial solar products. Beyond driving advances in system cost and performance, I believe that integration of HelioVolt’s CIGS thin film photovoltaics into building construction materials will fundamentally reinvent the way we view and apply solar energy in the world around us.”

Andy Hannah, CEO of Plextronics, was awarded the Printed Electronics USA Champion Award. The purpose of this award is to recognize an individual who has given outstanding contribution to the industry by promoting it to a wider audience, and by also achieving significant technical and commercial development in their own companies.

“This is a tremendous and humbling honour,” Hannah said. “In every sense, though, this award is truly a reflection of the team at Plextronics. It takes each one of our employees to create, develop and bring to market the products and technology that define our industry and our company.” As CEO of Plextronics, Andy has achieved this by the company making significant technical developments and for Andy’s role promoting the industry globally, including being Vice Chairman of the Organic Electronics Association (OE-A).

By Raghu Das