AUTOFLEX - Automated Integration of Flexible Electronics

在过去的四十年里，电子产品的日益普及对日常生活产生了深远的影响。移动电话也许是最明显的例子，因为它允许人们不断地连接到一系列电子资源。这一趋势仍在继续，越来越多的日常用品正变得电子化。挑战是能够在对成本影响最小的情况下为物品添加电子功能，这一点正被称为“大面积电子”的领域所解决，该领域研究如何在大面积的各种表面（如玻璃或塑料）上制造电子设备。尽管大面积电子工业在历史上一直由显示器主导，但它现在正在向包括印刷逻辑的其他领域多样化，并且正是这将允许将电子功能添加到日常物品中[Nathan，A.，例如，Proc. IEEE，100，1486（2012）]。大面积电子显示器行业已经发现，为了经济生产，能够执行产品的在线测试（以及随后的修复）是绝对必要的[D. Hendricks，“平板显示器的检查和测试”，Proc.SPIE，2174，107-115（1994）]。这是显示器制造发生的非常大的区域以及每单位面积存在显著缺陷的统计可能性的结果。显示器背板的高价值意味着测试和维修在经济上是必要的。在下一代大面积印刷逻辑电子器件中，类似的方法将是必要的。虽然在印刷逻辑的制造中使用低成本材料和工艺意味着集成到标签、新奇产品、玩具和游戏以及类似应用中的单个系统的成本比显示器低几个数量级，但假设测试的成本可以足够低，测试仍然有经济驱动力。然而，尽管显示器的测试可以通过使用探针卡和多个通信通道的现有技术来经济地实现，但对于生产速度可能超过每小时100万个电路的印刷逻辑来说，这将不是真的。因此，需要一个阶跃变化，以便能够以如此高的速率进行经济的测试，这是本项目研究的重点。

The increasing ubiquity of electronics has had a profound influence upon everyday life over the last forty years. The mobiletelephone is perhaps the most obvious example of this, as it allows someone to be constantly connected to a range ofelectronic resources. This trend is continuing, and more and more everyday objects are becoming electronically enabled.The challenge is to be able to add electronic functionality to objects with minimal impact upon cost, and this is beingaddressed by the field known as 'large-area electronics' which looks at how electronic devices can be fabricated on adiversity of surfaces (such as glass or plastics) over large areas. Although the large-area electronics industry hashistorically been dominated by displays, it is now diversifying to other areas including printed logic, and it is this that willallow electronic functionality to be added to everyday objects [Nathan, A., et al., Proc. IEEE, 100, 1486 (2012)].The large-area electronic display industry has found it absolutely essential to be able to perform in-line testing (andsubsequent repair) of products for economic production [D. Hendricks, 'Inspection and test of flat panel displays', Proc.SPIE, 2174, 107-115 (1994)]. This is a consequence of the very large areas over which display manufacture takes place,and the statistical likelihood of a significant defect being present per unit area. The high value of the display backplanemeans that testing and repair is economically essential.A similar approach will be necessary in the next generation of large-area printed logic electronics. Although the use of lowcost materials and processes in the manufacture of printed logic means that the cost of an individual system for integrationinto labels, novelty products, toys and games and similar applications is orders of magnitude lower than the display, thereis still an economic driver for testing, assuming that the cost of the test can be made to be sufficiently low. However,whereas the testing of a display can be achieved economically using established techniques that employ probe cards andmultiple communication channels, this will not be true for printed logic where production speeds could be in excess of 1million circuits per hour. Therefore, a step-change is required to be able to perform economical testing at such high rates,and this is the focus of the research in this project.