Daniel R. Gamota, Ph.D., Department Manager, Motorola, Inc., New Products Technologies

What was 2.5 days long, had 24 presentations and more than 120 attendees (new business developers, engineers, 3 CEOs) from 50 companies and 12inches of snow to boot?

The recent Advanced Technology Workshop (ATW) sponsored by International Microelectronics And Packaging Society (IMAPS) held in Incline Village, Lake Tahoe, March 8 – 10, 2002, attracted over 120 attendees to discuss organic field effect transistor (OFET) technology. The 2.5 day event brought together the leaders of the OFET value chain to present the most recent technological developments as well as to provide solutions and pathways for bringing the OFET technology to fruition. The workshop attracted more than 50 companies that represent different elements of the value chain (materials, equipment, printing platform suppliers, and OEMs). The mission for the organizers was to create an environment that would nurture ideas and create teams. The mission was achieved. As one participant expressed: “…I was impressed by [1] the openness of discussion and [2] the willingness of delegates to offer suggestions to those doing research and/or development. Hopefully this sort of mutual support will continue so that this technology can advance on a broad scale...” - Noel Eberhardt, Consultant.

The attendance was much greater than that expected for a first year workshop reflecting the compelling opportunities for this technology in the future. One participant commented on the importance of these events and sponsorship by societies such as IMAPS: “The exciting potential of plastic electronics can only be brought to fruition by industry wide collaborations between the key players, and the IMAPS Workshop on Printing an Intelligent Future provides an outstanding forum for the establishment of those collaborations. In ten years time we will look back and say that these workshops were pivotal moments in the development of a whole new industry.” - Tom McLean, Director of Business Development, Avecia Limited.

The OFET community was excited that IMAPS shared the same vision and was willing to sponsor the event. The attendees have given the event a resounding “A+” and hope that IMAPS will be willing to sponsor future workshops as the technology continues to mature and become commercialized.

The ATW attendees are the leaders in the OFET space who have driven this technology during the past few years. The speakers gave presentations on how their companies will help the organic transistor technology leave the R&D environment and make a successful transfer to high volume manufacturing. Presenters discussed the history of the technology, present status of the materials, and efforts to enhance the performance of the materials systems to make them more robust and less sensitive to environmental conditions. Although two sessions specifically addressed organic transistor materials and device performance, the other sessions discussed potential manufacturing issues based on existing commercial printing production platforms, e.g. equipment, materials, and testing. The importance of including these sessions was captured by one attendee: “The combined knowledge of the printing and ink industries can greatly enhance the realization of this technology. By applying what was learned in the last century, using rotary processes to deposit various fluid materials, we can build an entirely new array of inexpensive electronic devices to make life better for everyone this century.” - Dan Lawrence, Flint Ink.

Other presenters discussed several manufacturing related correlations between printing experience and what could lead to potential “show-stoppers” as we embark on the printing of active electronic devices, e.g., printing tolerances, speeds, equipment down-time, equipment cost, yields, preventive maintenance, etc. In general, the attendees were in agreement that these topics must be addressed before high volume manufacturers will accept this technology.

The 1st Printing an Intelligent Future ATW was a strong platform on which many potential issues were brought to the forefront, and methods and solutions to address these were suggested. The final session was the culmination of the workshop and was organized in an effort to help attendees begin to create strategies for technology diffusion into the mainstream. The importance of inclusion and the overall value of the final session was noted by one attendee: “I especially liked the inclusion of the last day, move to the basics of what it takes to move this technology out of a lab to device and tooling R&D, to pilot-lines, and then to pre-production, and finally to full production. Certainly, a lot of work is yet to be done, but this weekend workshop helped me put it all in perspective for now.” - Michael Fields, Lambda Physik-USA and MicroLas.

Passion was not lost after the final session brought the realities of real world manufacturing to the forefront as noted by one participant making the statement after the ATW had concluded: “One of the biggest opportunities for this technology is as a potential alternative to the multi-billion dollar silicon wafer fabs. Granted, those fabs produce extremely sophisticated devices, but the vision is to start mass-producing inexpensive, simple devices using an ‘organic fab,’ costing perhaps $40m. The printing processes could then be refined to produce increasingly small feature sizes and therefore achieve continuously increasing levels of sophistication similar to that described by Moore’s law.” - Dan Lawrence, Flint Ink.

In the past few weeks since the conclusion of the ATW, attendees have continued to maintain the momentum created during the 2.5 days in Incline Village. Some have provided suggestions to increase the number of topics covered in the next ATW while others encouraged the organizers to select an International location to enable greater participation from our European and Asian colleagues. The organizing committee is pleased with the workshop turnout and the heightened level of OFET awareness. In the future, the organizers hope that IMAPS will continue to provide the forum as two worlds are merged – microelectronics and printing – as we create an Intelligent Printed Future.