Thinfilm Printed Memory Selected for FlexTech Program on Sensors for Medical Devices

Thin Film Electronics ASA (Thinfilm) announced that its award-winning Addressable Memory was chosen by a FlexTech Alliance-funded consortium as a key component in a printed sensor platform to monitor temperature and blood oxygen content. Thinfilm will deliver its Addressable Memory to the new program led by PARC, a Xerox Company, and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). The project will also use technology from Thinfilm and PARC, integrating printed memory and sensors.

“Emerging technologies in printed, flexible, and organic electronics are poised to impact the $300 billion global medical device market as governments, insurers and patients seek to bring down healthcare costs,” stated Lux Research in its recent report, Keeping the Doctor Away: The Opportunities for Emerging Electronics in Healthcare.

“The disruptive potential of printed electronics is enormous, especially for markets such as health care where printed sensor systems will be a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions,” said Davor Sutija, CEO, Thinfilm. “Selection by the FlexTech program is a strong validation of the technical merits of Thinfilm’s integrated printed electronics platform and demonstrates the applicability of our core technology to areas as broad as medical devices.”

In applications requiring single-use, disposable sensors, traditional silicon-based electronic devices are too expensive. Printed sensor systems, as thin as a piece of paper, are uniquely appropriate for such high-volume medical applications.

Projects funded by the FlexTech Alliance are vetted by the FlexTech Technical Council, consisting of distinguished technologists from companies including Lockheed Martin, Qualcomm, E Ink, Applied Materials, Dupont Teijin Films and the U.S. Army Research Lab.

This announcement follows Thinfilm’s selection by Bemis, a Fortune 500 packaging company, to develop an intelligent packaging platform based on Thinfilm’s integrated printed electronics platform.