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PolyApply Presents a 13.56 MHz RFID Demonstrator Made of Flexible Organic Devices 16.03.2007
Brussels, Belgium 01 March 2007: After 3 years of development, the European project PolyApply “The Application of Polymer Electronics to Ambient Intelligence” presented a 13.56 MHz RFID (“radio frequency identification”) transponder fully made of flexible organic devices. This demonstrates the feasibility of the new technology of organic electronics for the use in information applications. Things that think and the communication of people with such things in their environment critically depend on contactless communication technologies. Radio Frequency (RF) communication devices and protocols have been developed in the past and exist today, yet in their present form they cannot be used on a large scale to allow communication with everyday objects. The fundamental reason for this is the cost of the silicon technology employed to realize it. Even in its most optimistic projection, this cost remains at least one order of magnitude higher than the cost of a technology that has been proven to be truly ubiquitously applicable, such as a barcode. Therefore, a new generation of devices is required to enable ambient intelligence at the right cost point in order to be truly applicable everywhere and anywhere. This challenge is addressed by PolyApply (www.polyapply.org), an integrated project funded within the 6th Framework IST programme of the European Union (total budget of 20 Mio Euros, starting in January 2004 until December 2007). A consortium of 18 partners from industry and research focuses on the overall objective to lay the foundations of a scalable and ubiquitously applicable communication technology. The boundary condition is the cost of the micro system, combining basic RF communication with additional functionalities like sensor functions. The key to achieve a cost point, which is fundamentally different than what will be reachable in the future with the evolution of the existing technologies (e.g. CMOS), is to move resolutely to a disruptive new manufacturing technology: going from batch processing to in-line manufacturing technology. The semiconductor system envisaged to this end is based on organic semiconductors, i.e. small molecules or polymers. The partners have chosen a RFID (radio frequency identification) tag to demonstrate the different process technologies as well as materials and devices developed in the course of the project. The first demonstrator in 2005 targeted a frequency of 125 kHz, while the now presented second generation is working at the standardized high frequency (HF) of 13.56 MHz. It consists of single devices - an antenna, a resonance capacitor, a rectifier, a ring oscillator and a modulator - made from various partners of the consortium. All single devices are built on the basis of organic semiconductors, conductors and dielectrics on flexible substrates and produced in inline-compatible processes. In the current status, they are assembled in a hybrid setup that means all single components are mounted separately on a common circuit board. The major challenge of this demonstrator was to have a rectified power supply with sufficient voltage for the circuit (the ring oscillator) by rectifying the 13.56 MHz radio frequency signal from the antenna. It could be demonstrated live, that the rectified power was high enough to start the ring oscillator signal. Thus an oscillating frequency of more than 100 Hz was shown. This is a significant result towards the realization of low cost high volume organic RFID tags, because all components are made with inline compatible processes. It also demonstrates that various material classes and processes developed by the consortium, from evaporated molecules to printed polymers, are suitable for the use in the new organic electronics technology. Having a high volume production in mind, the development of materials and processes is accompanied by an environmental impact assessment, focusing among others on energy consumption and balance of materials. Still the consortium continues to improve the second generation tag until the end of the project end of 2007 in order to achieve a higher functionality, additional functions and a higher degree of flexibility. The PolyApply project will present the project results on the Final PolyApply Workshop, taking place on September 24th, 2007 and will exhibit at the Organic Electronics Conference on September 25th and 26th, 2007 in Frankfurt. Further details will be available on www.polyapply.org. PolyApply is funded in FP6 by IST No. 507143. PolyApply consortium contact: |