CAMBRIDGE, UK – Integrated sensors digitizing physical interactions are vital in everyday life. From personalized user experiences to warehouse inventory management, data-driven insights are driving demand for smarter sensors — and lots of them.

Some believe that printing sensors is key to meeting this demand. Using established printing methods, sensors capable of measuring pressure, force, touch, light, gas, temperature, and more can be manufactured in large areas at high volumes. While printed sensors have historically struggled to compete with conventional sensing solutions on cost alone, the tides are turning. Mass digitization demands greater, more seamless digital integration, and large-area printed sensors are positioned to empower the next generation of smart sensing solutions behind this.

Large Area: Printing sensors is the key to large area sensing

Mass digitization will see data captured across more surfaces, and large-area sensors naturally represent a solution to meet this need. Large-area sensors mapping surface interactions offer greater spatial information and enhanced data granularity than using single-point sensors alone. To obtain sufficiently large-area sensors, printing becomes somewhat necessary, offering production in vastly expanded dimensions than what is possible using subtractive manufacturing processes.

Large-area printed sensors are witnessing sustained growth in consumer electronics applications for mapping surface interactions. Major PC manufacturers have begun employing large-area printed force sensors within laptop trackpads, offering dynamic 3D touch functionality to enhance the user interface experience. Printed photodetectors are emerging within OLED display stacks to provide multi-touch fingerprint authentication with minimal impact on overall device thickness. Multi-touch authentication using printed photodetectors promises up to 700 million times greater security than current single-finger methods.

It is unsurprising that smartphone and laptop products represent strong routes to market for printed sensors. These devices contain pre-existing large-area user interfaces that easily benefit from the added functionality printed sensors offer. Crucially, the fast development times and bespoke nature of consumer electronic sensing requirements complement the capabilities of printed sensor technology providers, who are well suited to co-develop custom sensing solutions.

Multifunctionality: printed sensors offer hybrid functionality in a compact form factor

In many sensing applications, measuring more than one metric at a time is required. Take, for example, 3D touch laptop trackpads, where high-accuracy touch detection must be accompanied with force input recognition. Printing sensors as sheets allows different sensing layers to be stacked and combined with minimal impact on form factor or weight. Printed sensors, therefore, offer a relatively straightforward way of integrating multifunctional sensing into existing products.

Automotive sector interest is driving multifunctional printed sensor growth opportunities in applications such as the thermal management of electric vehicle batteries. Hybrid printed temperature sensors can detect cell hot spots, while pressure sensing layers monitor battery swelling indicative of cell failure. Moreover, printed sensors augmented with printed heater layers provide the additional means to address these measurements, offering a complete active thermal management solution. Deployment, charging and discharging optimizations all increase battery capacity and prolong lifetime, and could be worth up to US$3000 in savings per vehicle.

The automotive sector is immersed in a period of sustained technological redefinition, with electrification and autonomy meta-trends molding the future of mobility. So, too, are automotive sensing requirements evolving, which lead printed sensor growth opportunities for enabling multifunctional technology solutions. If key cost, weight, and energy efficiency thresholds are met, printed sensors have the potential to define future electric vehicle sensing requirements before battery chemistry and design convergence invites more standardized solutions.

Flexibility: Balancing form and function with flexible sensors

Rigid sensors and detectors are often poorly suited for applications that require conformal sensing across non-planar surfaces – for example, X-ray medical imaging where, ideally, detectors would conform to limbs. Printing sensors on flexible substrates, such as PET, polyurethane, or polyimide, offers a conformable sensing solution that non-printed sensors struggle to replicate. The variety of elastic, thermal, and even biodegradable properties available means that sensing solutions are highly customizable and easily tailored for end-use applications.

Emerging growth opportunities for flexible photodetectors target displacing incumbent sensing technologies that would clearly benefit from greater flexibility and non-planar measurement. One such example includes large-area photodetectors for X-ray imaging. Flexible X-ray sensors that conform to the body offer the potential to improve medical diagnosis, while in industrial applications, the ability to image in confined spaces promises more time-efficient non-destructive component testing.

Flexibility is only desirable in a handful of photodetection applications, with more promising prospects residing with printed sensor technologies such as force, strain, and temperature sensing. Yet, some flexible photodetectors show the rare potential to compete on cost with existing image sensing solutions, for example, in X-ray and SWIR detection. However, growth prospects for printed photodetectors displacing incumbent image sensors will be contingent on overcoming steep and well-defined performance criteria.

Conclusions and outlook

Previously, printed sensors’ inability to meet critical cost, performance, size, and reliability thresholds stymied penetration into key product markets. But with mass digitization driving the need to capture data across more and more surfaces, large-area sensing is quickly emerging as the higher-valued market differential for printed sensor technology.

Saturation in consumer electronics product markets is driving interest in large-area sensors that offer innovative new functionality, and printed sensor technology providers are well-positioned to keep pace with fast development cycles. Multifunctional and flexible printed sensors are also increasingly desirable for use in the medical and electric vehicle industries. While conventional sensors can individually achieve large-area sensing, multi-functionality, and flexible form factors, the most efficient way to combine all three is with printed sensors.

Looking forward, IDTechEx predicts that the printed sensor market will reach US$960M by 2034. The growth anticipated will be driven by new opportunities unlocked by flexible large area and multifunctional sensors in applications such as battery health management, biometric authentication on flexible displays, and even flexible X-ray medical and industrial imaging.

For more information on IDTechEx’s research on this topic, please see their report, “Printed and Flexible Sensors 2024-2034: Technologies, Players, Markets”. Downloadable sample pages are available for this report.

ATLANTA – ECIA is pleased to announce that Adam Osmancevic, VP, Supplier Development of the Global Components business at Arrow Electronics, has joined the Global Industry Practices Committee (GIPC). The GIPC works to identify common global problems and issues, organizes subject matter experts to research, provide guidance and drive adoption to increase efficiencies throughout the global authorized channel for electronic components.

“Adam will be a valuable addition to the very talented team of industry professionals already on our current committee,” Don Elario, ECIA’s VP of Industry Practices added. “Adam began his career in 1995 and he has great experience on the component manufacturer and distribution side of the table. I look forward to working with him to create new efficiencies in the component supply chain.”

REDMOND, WA – Data I/O Corporation (NASDAQ: DAIO), the leading global provider of advanced security and data deployment solutions for microcontrollers, security ICs and memory devices, announced the Company has achieved a major milestone with the sale of the 500 th PSV automated programming system. This milestone is a testament to Data I/O’s continued innovation, investment, and leadership in programming technology for the automotive, industrial and consumer markets and signifies the PSV family as the most successful automated programming system in the industry. Demonstrations of the PSV family will be available in Data I/O’s booth #3107 at the during IPC APEX Expo in Anaheim, California from April 9-11 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Over the past decade, the PSV family has grown to include the PSV7000, PSV5000, PSV3500, and PSV2800 automated programming systems, which have been further enhanced through the SentriX® security provisioning platform. With system deployments on five continents, and to over one hundred unique customers, the PSV installed base has the capacity to program over 1.5 billion semiconductor devices per year. The strong global demand for the PSV family is reflected in the partnership Data I/O has with its customers and the Company’s continuous innovation strategy to extend the platform to meet its customers’ evolving programming requirements for new device technology, security, and connectivity. As a result, the PSV family is the industry standard for device programming and the trusted supplier to eighteen of the top twenty automotive electronics suppliers worldwide.

“Rapidly changing silicon technology, growing file sizes, increasing security requirements, and the connected smart factory create unique programming challenges for electronics manufacturers, threatening their ability to keep up with production demands. Our customers need a trusted programming platform that can grow and meet their ever-changing requirements. The PSV family helps them address these challenges,” said Anthony Ambrose, President and CEO at Data I/O Corporation. “Data I/O’s dedication to continuous innovation enables our customers to maximize their programming performance to meet these ever- increasing production requirements. Because of our substantial, ongoing investment and our upgrade strategy for PSV systems in the field, customers can leverage their existing Data I/O programming technology for years to come to achieve the lowest total cost of ownership.”

Data I/O to demonstrate the PSV family with security provisioning solutions for the connected factory at the IPC APEX Expo 2024

Data I/O will demonstrate the latest advancements to the PSV7000 and PSV3500 automated programming systems, Lumen®X with VerifyBoost TM , ConneX service software, and SentriX security provisioning platform in Data I/O’s booth #3107 at the IPC APEX Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center from April 9th – April 11th.

Data I/O’s PSV7000 is the premier automated programming solution designed for high-speed scalable production. The PSV3500 offers a cost-effective entry point for customers new to automated programming and is ideal for low volume/high mix production environments.

LumenX with VerifyBoost delivers rapid verify speeds up to 750 MBps for the programming of UFS devices while achieving a 64% improvement in programming performance. The combination of the scalability of the PSV system and LumenX with VerifyBoost maximizes production throughput for customers programming large file sizes and UFS devices.

ConneX service software enables integration between a PSV system and a factory application for two-way communication via MQTT and GraphQL APIs to optimize the electronics manufacturing process and improve quality and traceability. Data I/O will demonstrate the power of ConneX and show how customers can accelerate the integration of the PSV into a factory system by accessing the MQTT and Graph QL sample code on GitHub.

SentriX is the industry’s most flexible security deployment platform for deploying robust hardware-based security for automotive and IoT applications. SentriX simplifies the security provisioning process by delivering pre-defined use cases and custom provisioning flows via SentriX Product Creator. With the addition of new key wrapping capabilities, SentriX now supports even more key management options providing more flexibility to OEMs and electronic manufacturers. The PSV7000 and PSV5000 can be upgraded to support SentriX.

Customers attending the IPC APEX Expo in Anaheim, California can visit Data I/O’s booth in booth #3107 to see these live product demonstrations.

LAKEVILLE, MN – ITW EAE, the Electronic Assembly Equipment division of Illinois Tool Works, announces a new partnership agreement with Foster Innovative Technology, LLC (FIT) to further expand its representation and distribution network. Under this agreement, FIT will now cover the territory of Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming for ITW EAE equipment. This partnership marks an extension of FIT’s existing representation of ITW EAE’s product line, which previously included Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Idaho.

“FIT has provided excellent representation for ITW EAE product lines over the past few years,” said John Fanning, ITW EAE Sales Director. “As we were looking into this expansion, we felt that FIT would be best able to provide our ITW EAE customers with the first class, highly trained and technically experienced sales and support needed to grow our market in this territory. ”With over 25 years of experience serving the electronics assembly market, their mission is to provide world class solutions that are the optimal FIT to the customer application. More information on Foster Innovative Technology, LL (FIT) can be found at https://fitechnologyllc.com.

The recent FIT partnership expansion comes on the heels of retirement of Jeff Howe, AMTI, who represented ITW EAE in the territory for over 40 years.

“I can’t thank Jeff enough for all the experience and guidance as he provided ITW EAE and myself.“ said Marc Apell, ITW EAE Regional Sales Mgr. “Jeff was a mentor to me when I got into the industry and valued his advice.”