Towards Wireless Flexible Printed Electronics

Flexible electronics enable large area, lightweight, thin functional devices that are conformal to the human body. These electronic devices are important in Internet of Things applications as they enable interfacing electronics with complex physical objects. Flexible sensors are being developed in industries including automotive, packaging, and structural health monitoring. Wearable medical technology has seen considerable advancement in recent years in both consumer health monitoring products such as smart watches and research of clinical grade sensors. Sensors including temperature, heart rate, blood oxygenation, and various metabolites present in sweat have been demonstrated. In all cases, to be truly "wearable" a device should be comfortable: conformal, lightweight, thin, and cable-less. A functional wearable device must include not only a sensor, but also a power source and communication capability. The power and communication systems should meet the same comfort criteria as the sensors. While printed electronic components have the advantages of being flexible, lightweight, thin, and large area, conventional rigid silicon electronics are capable of fast, efficient computation, data processing and storage in a small footprint at low power. Flexible hybrid electronic (FHE) systems take advantage of these complementary strengths by integrating conventional components and printed components together [8]. In this talk, I will cover the fundamental building blocks for an FHE system - including printed sensors and circuits, printed antennas for wireless power and communication, printed energy harvesting and storage. I will discuss recent progress, fabrication, applications and opportunities in flexible hybrid electronics.