Small area modules, records and OE-A presentation
The Harvesting Revolution #6
💡 LEARNING CONTENT
LAYER® small area modules target indoor application like the smart cards. Small size OPV modules have unique advantages, including solution processability, flexibility, lightweight and tailorable design. There is a growing demand for modules with a very small surface area capable of delivering only a few microwatts. Indeed, with the progress of low-consumption electronics, more and more applications can be found. Read more…
📚 GREAT READS
OPV is booming !
26% efficiency in a low-light environment for the solar technology. Armor Group involved in OPV roll to roll, announces in October, that it achieved a record 26% efficiency in a low-light environment for the ASCA® organic photovoltaic (OPV) cell.
Fill-factor record for an OPV module fully inkjet. From Dracula Technologies, we achieved a new fill factor record for an OPV Module with full inkjet-printed layers. These LAYER® modules with small area target indoor application.
🎙 INTERVIEW // Jan Krausmann – Project Manager OE-A
Hi Jan, thanks for joining us.
The OE-A stands for Organic and Printed Electronics Association, what is your mission?
The OE-A, a working group within VDMA, facilitates an international network, fosters and advocates the flexible, organic and printed electronics community, and seeks cooperation with other markets and technical communities. In this regard, we foster collaboration and promote information exchange among all international participants along the entire value chain, with a special focus on connecting with end-users. We promote our members and technologies via a multitude of media outlets and by participating and organizing international events. We provide forecast for main application areas and technologies, identify hurdles yet to be overcome and define R&D funding programs as well as support and coordinate industrial R&D. Furthermore, we support international standardization processes and represent the industry and its interests at national and regional governments, as well as at the European Commission.
And what is your position at the OE-A?
I am a project manager at the OE-A, responsible for the coordination and organization of the roadmapping process and publication of the ‘OE-A Roadmap for Organic and Printed Electronics’. Furthermore, I am responsible for our OE-A Working Groups Hybrid Systems, Encapsulation and Education. Besides, the focus of my work is the support of the LOPEC Conference Board in organizing the LOPEC Conference program as well as the organization of web-seminars and seminars at international conferences and trade shows. Finally, I represent the OE-A and its members at exhibitions and conferences.
How many members do you have in the association?
The OE-A has currently well more than 200 members from more than 30 countries worldwide, representing the entire value chain of organic, flexible and printed electronics – from component & material suppliers, equipment & tool suppliers, producers & system integrators to end-users and research institutes & universities.
How do you help them?
By organizing international networking events as well as seminars at tradeshows and conferences, we foster collaborations, partnerships and information exchange within the printed electronics industry. With our OE-A Roadmap, we provide an important decision aid for R & D programs and product development. Furthermore, we represent the interests of our members at national and regional governments and at the European Commission. Finally, with Messe München we jointly organize LOPEC, the leading international Printed Electronics exhibition and conference.
You released some months ago your new “OE-A Roadmap for Organic and Printed Electronics”. What are the main points to keep in mind?
Since the release of the previous OE-A Roadmap, we have seen a continued growth of the organic and printed electronics (OPE) industry which is accompanied by a transition from ‘technology push’ to ‘market pull’, reflected in an ever increasing number of applications entering the market. Furthermore, the interest in and establishment of organic and printed electronics in important industry sectors, such as automotive, consumer electronics or healthcare among others, is growing. As such, we dedicated a whole new chapter to these industry sectors and developed individual Roadmaps for each sector. Another important point is that significant progress could be achieved with regard to major challenges, so called ‘Red Brick Walls’, so that these will be overcome in the near future.
What are the major trends you observe?
One of the major trends is the rapid and continued growth of the OPE industry, where OLED displays still remain the biggest success and the first foldable displays have entered the market. Furthermore, OPE has enabled a variety of applications in the automotive industry, which is one of its main end-user sectors, but it also plays an increasingly important role in the healthcare sector and is a key enabler for the Internet of Things. A further key trend is the utilization of so-called hybrid systems, the combination of printed electronics with classical electronics. Finally, significant efforts have been dedicated to adopt printed electronics to stretchable applications.
You have an important number of companies involving in energy harvesting and notably in photovoltaic. How do you see them evolving?
In recent years, a quantum leap in development and innovations, especially in the organic photovoltaics (OPV) sector could be observed. The main research efforts aimed to improve the efficiency but also manufacturability with several companies investing in volume production abilities. In this regard, production lines for OPV have been installed and several real life and large scale applications could be demonstrated. As OPV has already been identified as a key energy technology for building integrated photovoltaics and offering the possibility for powering the Internet of Things, among other applications, with further progress there is a huge potential for this technology.
Do you have some interesting webinars scheduled in the next weeks ?
Yes, we will host our next OE-A web-seminar of the ‘Printed Electronic Insights’ series on November 05. This time we will give insights into the special topic ‘healthcare’ with an introduction to the OE-A Roadmap, covering recent and future printed electronics developments in the healthcare sector, and inspiring presentations from Holst Centre and Henkel. Furthermore, we will host the web-seminar ‘Future Trends of Mobility’ during electronic virtual, taking place on November 11, where renowned industry experts will show the latest applications of organic, flexible and printed electronics in the automotive sector. Further web-seminars will follow in 2021. More information about our web-seminars can be found on the OE-A website.
Do you have some article or other resources to share with our readers?
Readers who want more information about OE-A , our upcoming activities and events are welcome to visit our website www.oe-a.org, where they can subscribe to our newsletter as well to stay up to date. They will also find more information about OPE and we furthermore offer a free executive summary of the OE-A Roadmap besides a variety of information material for download.
📅 Webinar & video ressources
Do you remember our project with Orange Labs, some weeks ago ? Jasper Sikken is selling a very close board. It efficiently converts solar panel energy into supercapacitor charge. The AEM10941 harvesting IC is very suitable for indoor applications because it has an ultra low power startup.
👋 If you want to get in touch with someone of the team : contact@dracula-technologies.com
Take care !
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