PolyIC, ThinFilm announce pilot of volume printed plastic memories

LONDON — PolyIC GmbH & Co. KG (Fuerth, Germany) and ThinFilm Electronics ASA (Oslo, Norway) have announces that they have manufactured rewritable polymer memory products in a high-volume, roll-to-roll printing process.

The companies describe the process as being high yield and said that the resulting memory product meets low voltage requirements for consumer products, such as in the toys and games industry.

The rewritable memory is being pitched as way to give physical toys a degree of intelligence, personality, history and to interact with the online world.

"We are very pleased by the results of the collaboration with PolyIC, and with their ability to produce Thinfilm polymer memory in a high-volume, cost-effective printing process," said Rolf Aberg, CEO of Thinfilm, in a statement. "PolyIC, which is owned by Siemens and Leonhard Kurz, is a stable, long-term production partner for Thinfilm, as we start providing our customers and partners with memory products in large volumes. Furthermore, we can in the future integrate our memory technology with PolyIC's thin-film transistor technology, enabling PolyIC and Thinfilm to jointly address significant market opportunities, such as printed RFID products."

"PolyIC has developed and built up a roll-to-roll production process for printed electronics, and has successfully demonstrated its first printed RFID tags. Thinfilm's memory technology is complementary to our own technology, and by using our process and production technology, we have been able to successfully manufacture stand-alone Thinfilm memory products that satisfy our current customer requirements. As a complement to our PolyID and PolyLogo product lines, we look forward to developing products combining Thinfilm's and our technology," commented Wolfgang Mildner, managing director at PolyIC.

The joint development and the results are built on Thinfilm's intellectual property and know-how for the production of soluble memory materials, architecture and processes, and PolyIC's manufacturing techniques.

The companies did not say what size of memory is being manufactured or whether he companies have gone for a multilayered memory array. Nor did the companies indicate the rate of production possible on the roll-to-roll line.

Related links and articles:

www.polyic.com

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