Agenda 2020 (Event has been cancelled)
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
The paper includes an introduction, overview of the state of the art of the technology and a view on roadmaps like the OE-A roadmap (organic and printed electronics association) for existing and future applications printed electronics and 3D structural electronics and functions.

Wolfgang Mildner is Founder and Owner of MSWtech in Stein / Germany. MSWtech supports companies and other organizations to find value in new technologies – especially printed electronics. Wolfgang was Managing Director of PolyIC (a leading company for Printed electronics) from 2004 – 2014. Before Wolfgang Mildner worked in various business positions for Siemens (New business development, Business responsible for Industrial PC’s, Failsafe PLC’s and other). Wolfgang Mildner was responsible for a number of projects turning promising technologies into business. Wolfgang Mildner studied and achieved Diploma for Computer Science at the Technical University of Erlangen.

Rudie Oldenzijl got a Master of Science in Polymer Chemistry from the State University of Groningen. After a few years at a small start-up, he started working on the development for electrically conductive inks at National Starch in 2004 in Scheemda, the Netherlands. This was followed by five years in the United States. In this period National Starch became Henkel. From the US Rudie moved to the Product Development team in Westerlo, Belgium. After another five years, Henkel started the Printed Electronics Incubator. Rudie became a member of this team and moved back to Scheemda in the Netherlands where he is still working on the development of conductive inks.
The 3D form of the panel is a challenge for the integration of the 15 sensors on the back side. The integration became possible by the recently developed Functional Foil Bonding (FFB) method, where the sensors are bonded onto the panel backside by a hot dye with certain pressure. The panel is hold in a jig and the dye has the negative 3D form of the panel; by this the sensor is pressed into the demanded form. The bonding of the sensor is done by a primer that is applied onto the surface of the sensor label, and that is activated by the temperature and pressure of the dye.

Christoph Ernst studied plastics engineering at the Würzburg University of Applied Sciences. From 1985 to 1997, he was a member of the management team at Formplast Lechler in Nuremberg and worked in the toolmaking and injection moulding sector. In 1997, Christoph Ernst moved to Kunststoff Helmbrechts AG in Helmbrechts, where he is head of the sales department. During this time he was involved in the development and introduction of new surface technologies and in the expansion of business activities at global locations.
In addition, this system also allows the processing of conductive material and fiber reinforcement. Applications for this technology include flexible and electrically conductive strain gauges. These consist of soft TPU material (Desmopan) with carbon components and an inserted LED. The two-component functional component manufactured with the Freeformer is flexible and at the same time electrically conductive. Depending on the elongation and thus electrical resistance, the LED lights up with different brightness. A practical area of application for such strain gauges can be found in physiotherapy.

Frank Kynast, Manager Additive Manufacturing at ARBURG, has been with the company since 2015 and is responsible for technical sales in the regions of Southern Germany, Austria and Spain in the ARBURG Plastics Open Moulding Division (AKF).

Dr. Thomas Ebert studied automotive engineering at the RWTH Aachen University. He then completed his doctorate at the Fraunhofer ILT on the subject of "Development and Optimization of Microcoolers for High Power Diode Lasers". In 1989, the graduate engineer founded his first company together with two colleagues and took over its management. The company developed and manufactured laser systems for welding plastics. In 2006, he resigned from the management and sold his shares in the company to found IQ evolution, which he still manages today. IQ evolution is a developer and manufacturer of microcoolers using metal 3D printing
This presentation shows the approach for the gradual digitalization of printed circuit board production and its processes. An example of this is the new process of digital additive technology for solder resists, which makes it possible to implement customer wishes and special technological requirements. Up so far, this process is the first and only technology in the industry to offer the possibility of applying several layers of a dielectric directly, partially defined, specifically designed and with high precision. This enables a previously unseen degree of freedom in three-dimensional design.

Jürgen Wolf (m) studied at the University of Freiburg. After graduation in 2004, he worked at the Institute of Microsystem Technologies (IMTEK) in Freiburg/Germany as scientific assistant before he got involved with the work on reliability of MEMS-based inertial sensors for the Corporate Research of Robert Bosch GmbH/Germany in 2005. Beginning 2008 he started working as project engineer for the department “Research and Development – Circuit Board Technologies CBT” of Würth Elektronik GmbH & Co. KG/Germany and was announced “Assistant Manager Research and Development CBT” in 2012. Since 2015, Jürgen Wolf is the head of the product management "Embedding Technology", which deals with the embedding of components into printed circuit boards.
While flex and rigid-flex technologies can be mostly be covered by somewhat extending well-known and mature 2D design and manufacturing processes, real 3D electronics cannot be supported this way. The presentation will show what the current technology can accomplish to design 3D electronics and will give an outlook what will be needed for 3D printed electronics in terms of design capabilities.

Dr. Thomas Krebs studied Manufacturing Engineering and made his Ph.D. at the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg. He worked with ProSTEP in Darmstadt. He then worked with Zuken-Redac (now Zuken) and later with Mentor Graphics. In 2003 he founded Mecadtron, where he still is CEO.