Flexible Electronics News

Thinfilm Financial Report First Half 2011

Launched new products and increased its customer-facing activities in 2Q

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By: DAVID SAVASTANO

Contributing Editor, Coatings World and Ink World

Thinfilm announced its financial report for the first half of 2011. In the second quarter, Thinfilm launched new products and increased its customer-facing activities.

“We are seeing interest from new industries at the same time as we have deeper interaction with customers and partners,” said Dr. Davor Sutija, Thinfilm CEO. “We are being approached by leading companies in several additional markets, for applications such as promotional cards, online monetization, and secure documents.”

The Thinfilm Passive Array Memory, the world’s first printed memory array for high-volume manufacturing and consumer applications, was launched in June.

“Thinfilm Passive Array Memory unlocks markets and opens up for new applications,” Sutija continues, and mentions that the new memory is suitable in a broader range of applications where ID encryption is needed, e.g. ticketing and secure documents. “With higher storage capacity, information can be encoded,” he explained.

The new Thinfilm Passive Array Memory is an important step towards creating low-cost consumer electronics and in developing higher density printed memories suited for high-volume production.

“Thinfilm’s memory technology is the natural choice for ubiquitous traceability and smart packaging,” said Sutija.

Together with PARC, a Xerox Company, Thinfilm is prototyping addressable array memories that include printed transistors, the Thinfilm Addressable Memory, where the transistors drive logic for reading and writing data to the memory cells. The addressable memory uses similar array architecture as the Thinfilm Passive Array Memory.

“Thinfilm Addressable Memory is pivotal for creating printed systems because it enables integration of other printed components,” explained Sutija. Sensors, displays, and antennas are examples of components that can be integrated with the addressable memory to create fully printed systems. “This opens for ID tags, sensor tags, disposable price labels, and other smart tags produced at only a fraction of the cost of conventional silicon based electronics.”

In the second quarter, Thinfilm delivered prototypes and engineering services to several leading toy manufacturers.

“We are now seeing a deeper interaction with prospects, existing customers, and partners. Customers are now working on specific toy concepts and the number of projects has increased,” said Sutija.

The specific toy prototypes that are now being evaluated by toy manufacturers are based on Thinfilm’s current product offering, the Thinfilm Memory, a 20-bit non-volatile rewriteable printed memory, and the Thinfilm Memory Controller, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The Memory Controller coupled with the Thinfilm Toy Development Kit, enables rapid prototyping of interactive toys and games.

The OBA reference game, launched in February, demonstrates Thinfilm’s technology using cards with Thinfilm Memory to store game status. Companies from several industries have ordered the OBA game.

In April and May, Thinfilm opened offices in San Francisco and Tokyo.

“We have geared up our business development and sales activities, and this plays a major role in the growing interest from new customers and industry sectors we are receiving. Our initial commercial efforts targeted the toys and games industry. Now we are also able to meet the burgeoning demand for low-cost printed electronics for high-volume consumer applications from other industry sectors,” said Sutija.

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