Objectives

Applications

Two application areas will profit heavily from the developments in the PLACE-it project:
“On the body” healthcare and wellness applications, e.g.

Skin diseases treatment
Adaptation of the circadian rhythm, e.g. for night shift workers or on intercontinental flights
Relief of muscular pain or ‘comfort’ lighting
Monitoring of organ functions or other body parameters, e.g. blood flow

Consumer product design freedom, e.g.

Lamp designed into any shape, e.g. head light in a car compartment.
Light emitting curtains
Signage in clothing
Fashion with integrated electronics.

In the envisaged application fields, the functionality is distributed over some area, and that area is an integral part of the system. Therefore large area technologies and large area manufacturing are necessary. As electronic circuits will contain either (small) rigid and flexible components or interposers, the conformability will only be achieved by the carrier substrate and the interconnections.

Objectives

The objectives of PLACE-it are to analyse, develop and implement technology for the proper combination of functionalities in foil, stretchable and fabric substrates, resulting in conformable opto-electronic systems. Therefore PLACE-it shall develop:

Integration platform of foil, stretch and fabric technologies with opto-electronic functionality
Foil, stretchable and fabric-based devices for light emission, electronics, sensing and with interfaces to other technology building blocks
Design guidelines to implement the technology platform in a broad range of applications
Demonstrators, i.e. opto-electronic systems, showing the capabilities of the technology platform

Specifications

The frame of requirements for the attained opto-electronic systems are:

Stretchability will be depending on the application until a maximum of 50%
The dynamic bending radius in the stretchable interconnects will be down to 0.5 mm for low density interconnects
Robust electrical interfaces will be developed with a minimum pitch down to 0.1mm and a contact resistance smaller than 20% of the attached conductor
Optical properties of substrates and interfaces are very important, as in most cases light is generated, diffused, captured or guided
Attention will be paid to wearability of the electronic substrates
The substrates will be designed for proper heat dissipation and humidity control
For most applications, the system should be cleanable, either washable or otherwise allow sufficient cleaning (e.g. dry-cleaning)
For the category of on-the-body applications, it should be skin-compatible, meaning non-toxic and non-irritating
In some applications (parts of) the system are modular or detachable to a certain extent