About Flexible and Skin Electronics

About Flexible Electronics
Flexible electronics, also known as flex circuits, is a technology for assembling electronic circuits by mounting electronic devices on flexible plastic substrates, such as polyimide, PEEK or transparent conductive polyester film. Additionally, flex circuits can be screen printed silver circuits on polyester. Flexible electronic assemblies may be manufactured using identical components used for rigid printed circuit boards, allowing the board to conform to a desired shape, or to flex during its use. An alternative approach to flexible electronics suggests various etching techniques to thin down the traditional silicon substrate to few tens of micrometers to gain reasonable flexibility, referred to as flexible silicon (~ 5 mm bending radius).

Paul Eisler is generally credited as being the inventor of the printed circuit board.Paul Eisler was an Austrian inventor, born in Vienna in 1907. In 1936 Paul Eisler invented the process of using conductive epoxy to create circuit patterns. His first application for this idea was a radio circuit.

Flexible displays for automotive

Flexible displays bring outstanding opportunities for automotive interior design.

Progress toward connected cars and autonomous vehicles is leading to the evolution of the vehicle Human Machine Interface (HMI). Now a much greater proportion of the car’s interior surfaces can become interactive. The HMI today is already responsible for addressing the information, communication and entertainment needs of the passengers, while also meeting safety requirements. With the gradual transition to self-driving cars, the HMI is undergoing a change too both in terms of design and function.

Demand for flexible displays

In order to respond to the HMI evolution, displays will play an ever more important role for creating a customisable, personalisable and safer car interior. IHS Markit forecasts that the market global revenue from automotive display systems will grow at a compound annual growth rate of more than 11% to $18.6 billion by the end of 2021 driven by connectivity, infotainment and safety.

Flexible displays have the potential to create a design revolution in cars that won’t be limited to the dashboard and the centre console. There are many new applications that displays can address as they become thin, light, shatterproof and conformable to any surface.

Smart devices

Flexible displays unlock innovative design paradigms for smart devices and bring surfaces to life.

Changing consumer lifestyles and progress in connectivity technologies are leading to a growing adoption of smart devices and prompting more brands to enter this market.

IHS Markit forecasts there will be 470 million smart home appliances installed by 2020. Web-enabled white goods and voice-enabled devices are increasingly popular with tech-loving consumers, particularly as they promise to enhance our daily lives.

With the huge market potential smart devices offer, brands are competing for innovative design ideas and use cases that will differentiate their products and attract more customers.

Integrating an active matrix display into home appliances can contribute a range of functional properties to the device and give it a cutting edge. Many new product designs have unique shapes and curves meaning that conventional glass-based displays cannot be used without compromising design. Flexible organic LCD (OLCD) is a viable solution for adding active matrix displays to smart devices as it can be shaped, curved and wrapped around surfaces enabling different form factors. With OLCD being scalable to large areas, it can satisfy the needs for integrating a display in larger devices. 

About Skin Electronics

Electronic skin refers to flexible, stretchable and self-healing electronics that are able to mimic functionalities of human or animal skin. The broad class of materials often contain sensing abilities that are intended to reproduce the capabilities of human skin to respond to environmental factors such as changes in heat and pressure.

Advances in electronic skin research focuses on designing materials that are stretchy, robust, and flexible. Research in the individual fields of flexible electronics and tactile sensing has progressed greatly; however, electronic skin design attempts to bring together advances in many areas of materials research without sacrificing individual benefits from each field.The successful combination of flexible and stretchable mechanical properties with sensors and the ability to self-heal would open the door to many possible applications including soft robotics, prosthetics, artificial intelligence and health monitoring.

Recent advances in the field of electronic skin have focused on incorporating green materials ideals and environmental awareness into the design process. As one of the main challenges facing electronic skin development is the ability of the material to withstand mechanical strain and maintain sensing ability or electronic properties, recyclability and self-healing properties are especially critical in the future design of new electronic skins.

Working of Electronics

The skin is one of the main organs of the human body and it implements many different and relevant functions. Due to its complexity, the development of artificial, or better, electronic skin (e-skin) is a challenging goal which involves many different and complementary research areas.

Electronic skin refers to flexible, stretchable and self-healing electronics that are able to mimic functionalities of human or animal skin. Advances in electronic skin research focuses on designing materials that are stretchy, robust, and flexible.

The successful combination of flexible and stretchable mechanical properties with sensors and the ability to self-heal would open door to many possible applications including soft robotics, prosthetics, artificial intelligence and health monitoring. Self-healing, or re-healable, electronic skin is often achieved through a polymer-based material or a hybrid material.  

• Polymer-Based Material

• Hybrid Material

Researchers have developed a new type of malleable, self-healing and fully recyclable “electronic skin” that has applications ranging from robotics and prosthetic development to better bio-medical devices. Electronic skin, known as e-skin, is a thin, translucent material that can mimic the function and mechanical properties of human skin. A number of different types and sizes of wearable e-skins are now being developed in labs around the world as researchers recognize their value in diverse medical, scientific and engineering fields.E-skin has sensors embedded to measure pressure, temperature, humidity, and air flow.

Advantages of using E-skin

• It helps the body to adjust after the transplant.

• It can make robots more sensitive.

• Use of tiny electronic wires allows the skin to generate impulses, similar to that of the body’s own nervous system.

• It could lead to advancements in medical equipment.

Disadvantages of using E-skin

• As it is not readily available, it is extremely expensive.

• The maintenance of e-skin could be even more costly.

• Defects in robots e-skin can lead to accidents.