2020 FLEX/MSTC to Highlight Latest Technologies, Research

The 2020 FLEX/MSTC conference heads into the second day of talks focused on new developments and applications for flexible hybrid electronics (FHE).

Organized by SEMI-FlexTech, today’s session spans a wide variety of topics, including sensors,  displays, wearables, manufacturing, venture capital finding and more.

Morning Sessions

Wednesday, Feb. 26, features seven sessions, ranging from displays, sensors and MEMs, printing, characterization and more.

Binghamton University’s Mark Poliks will chair FLEX Session 6, Power, which features speakers Elaine Lee, research engineer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Joe Fleming, assistant professor, Coventry University; Pradeep Lall, MacFarlane Endowed Distinguished Professor and director, Auburn University; and Brian Zahnstecher, principal, PowerRox.

FLEX Session 7, Substrates & Barriers, will be moderated by Scott Gordon, DuPont Teijin Films. Presenters include Takatoshi Abe, technology research manager, Panasonic; Joey Mead, interim associate dean for Graduate Studies, University of Massachusetts, Lowell; Matthias Fahland, Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP; and John Olenick, president, ENrG Incorporated.

Eric Forsythe, Army Research Laboratory, will lead FLEX Session 8, which covers Displays & Optoelectronics II. Talks will be given by Jennifer Colegrove, CEO and principal analyst, Touch Display Research Inc.; Joonhyuk Cho, chief of R&D center/director (CTO), exax Inc.; Michael Hack, VP of business development, Universal Display; and Neil Bolding, technical manager, Seamless Integration of Automotive Displays.

Lumiled’s Pavel Dutta will serve as session chair for FLEX Session 9: Sensors. This segment features Gregory Otto, professor, University of Rhode Island; Sheng Xu, assistant professor, University of California, San Diego; Michael Brothers, technical program manager, UES Inc./711th Human Performance; and Nathan Pretorius, printing technology engineer, NextFlex.

FLEX Session 10: Printing Technologies, will be led by moderator Robert Praino, Chasm Advanced Materials. Presenters include Zheng Cui, director, Printed Electronics Research Center; Dr. Reinhard R. Baumann, professor emiritus, TU Chemnitz, Carolyn Ellinger, GM, printed electronics VP, Kodak PE Tech, LLC, a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak Company; and Xiangyang Liu, research council officer, National Research Council Canada.

Erica Montbach, Kent Display, will led FLEX Session 11, which discusses Reliability – Characterization. Talks will be given by Dr. Yi Zhou, student at Georgia Institute of Technology; Wudyalew Wondmagegn, associate professor, The College of New Jersey; Benjamin Stewart, graduate research assistant, Georgia Insti-tute of Technology; and Robert Malakhov, graduate student, University of New Mexico.

MSTC Session 4, Emerging Manufacturing Innovations for Sensors and MEMS, will be featured throughout the morning. Speakers include Michelle Bourke, senior director of strategic marketing, Lam Research Corporation; Dr. Boyi Hao, senior process engineer, Lam Research Corporation; Angela Franklin, customer support manager, Okmetic; David Horsley, co-founder, Chirp Microsystems, Inc.; Dr. Thomas Kenny, professor, Stanford University; Amit Lal, interim CEO, professor, Geegah LLC/Cornell University; and Dr. Shenqiang Ren, professor, mechanical engineering, The State University of New York at Buffalo.

There will also be five TechTALKS during the morning session:
• “Visualization of Dynamic Strain Energy on Flexible Devices” – Naotsugu Ando, Yuasa System
• “Applications of MEMS Sensors in Smart Industry” – Jay Esfandyari. STMicroelectronics
• “Smart Sensors for Managing Diabetes” – Bao Tran, T-Technology
• “Use of Thermal Retardation Layers to Overcome Coefficient of Thermal Expansion Mismatch in Non-Equilibrium Processing of Conductive Inks” – Vikram Turkani, NovaCentrix
• “Interconnect Design to Address Strain-Induced Resistance Variation in Flexible Hybrid Electronics” – Oscar Chuang, ITRI
 
Afternoon Sessions

After lunch, 2020 FLEX/MSTC will feature eight concurrent sessions and five TechTALKS.

Stephen Farias, NanoDirect LLC, will moderate FLEX Session 12: FHE Medical/Wearable Applications. Talks will be presented by Steven Lin, RD director, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering; GE Research’s Azar Alizadeh; Dr. Arsalan Alam, researcher from University of California, Los Angeles; Ahyeon Koh, assistant professor, Binghamton University; and James Turner, research scientist, Binghamton University.

NextFlex’s Scott Miller will chair FLEX Session 13: State of the Art FHE Manufacturing. Presenters include Art Wall, director of fab operations at NextFlex; Sai Avuthu, lead advanced technology engineer, Jabil; John Williams, associate technical fellow, Additive Electronics Manufacturing (AET)The Boeing Company; Enid Kivuti, technology director, Sheldahl, A Flex Company; Jeffrey Morse, roll-to-roll fabrication director, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Weifeng Liu, technologist/manager, Flex.

Mark Poliks, Binghamton University, returns to lead FLEX Session 14: Reliability – Metrology. Speakers include Rakesh Kumar, VP of technology, Specialty Coating Systems, Inc. and IEEE; Naotsugu Ando, chief designer, YUASA System; Eric Forsythe, program manager, NextFlex Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Institute/US Army Research Laboratory; Kalsi Kwan, additive electronics engineer, The Boeing Company; and Pradeep Lall, MacFarlane Endowed Distinguished Professor and director, Auburn University.

MSTC Session 5 will discuss IOT – From Components to Solutions. Presenters include Dr. Nicole Kerness of Kionix; Dr. Matteo Fusi, product marketing manager, sensors and actuators, STMicroelectronics; Tzeno Galchev, product marketing manager, MEMS Technology Group, Analog Devices; and Lambdazen CEO Sridhar Ramachandran.

After the break, Pavel Dutta of Lumileds will moderate Heterogeneous Integration of Flexible Electronics, FLEX Session 15. Speakers include Brian Berland, CTO, ITN Energy Systems; Prashant Agrawal, program manager, imec; Doug Hackler, president and CEO, American Semiconductor; Casey Grenier, materials scientist, Northeastern University; and Nagarajan Palavesam, research associate, Fraunhofer EMFT & Technische Universität Dresden.

3D Printed Electronics: From Devices to Systems, the topic of FLEX Session 16, will presents talks by Laura Ramu, printed electronics tech lead, Parsons; Douglas Schardt of Komori Corporation; Rhul Raut, director, strategy and technology acquisition, MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions; Bawa Singh, EVP for technology and corporate development, MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions; and Feras Alkhalil, principal scientist and director of R&D, PragmatIC.

Army Research Laboratory’s Eric Forsythe will chair FLEX Session 17: Manufacturing USA. Presenters include Melissa Grupen-Shemansky, CTO and FlexTech executive director, SEMI; Malcolm J. Thompson, executive director, NextFlex; Nicholas Usechak, AIM photonics government program manager, US Air Force Research Laboratory; Mary Clare McCorry, director of technology & process development, ARMI; and Alexander (Sasha) Stolyarov, CEO, AFFOA.

MSCT Session 6 will cover VC (Investors) & Startups, with an introduction by Steve Whalley, managing director, Microtech Ventures. Speakers include Dr. Maryam Ziaei, co-founder, CEO, iSono Health; Dr. Natalie Wisniewski, founder, Profusa Inc.; Dr. Kevin Shaw, CTO/founder, Algorithmic Intuition; Marc Alexander, founder and CEO, Motusi; Dr. Breanne Everett, CEO, president, and co-founder, Orpyx Medical Technologies; Dr. Yvonne Lutsch, investment principal, Robert Bosch LLC; Laura Oliphant, VC investor, independent board director, and principal, Serendibite Partners; Dr. Kurt  Petersen, Band of Angels; Rajesh Ramanujam, investment manager, Applied Ventures; and closing remarks by Carmelo Sansone, director of MEMS and Sensors Industry Group, SEMI.

There will be five TechTALKS during the Wednesday afternoon session:
• “Kodak Printed Electronics Processes and KODAK EKTAFLEX Products: Transparent Antenna Case Study” – Carolyn Ellinger, Eastman Kodak Company
• “CMOS Integrated GHz Ultrasonics for Sensing and Imaging” – Amit Lal, Geegah LLC, Cornell University
• “Direct Write Multimaterial Printing Without Inks” – Shomeek Mukhopadhyay, Obsidian Advanced Manufacturing
• “Advanced Applications of Photonic Curing Tools to Enhance Manufacturing of Flexible Hybrid Electronics” – Harry Chou, NovaCentrix
• “Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE) Technology Platforms for Emerging Human Machine Interface (HMI) Applications” – Albert Lu, Interlink Electronics

The FLEXI Awards and Student Poster Awards will be presented after the concurrent sessions.

For more information on FLEX2020, see FlexTech’s web site at flex.semi.org.