ORFID Signs Agreement with BASF to Develop Printable Organic Electronics

ORFID Corporation, an organic electronics company, announced  that it has signed an agreement with BASF Future Business GmbH (BFB), a subsidiary of BASF Aktiengesellschaft, to collaborate on the development and commercialization of printable organic electronic devices for use in display backplanes, RFID tags and other nextgeneration electronic products.

Under the agreement, BFB will provide organic materials, materials expertise and financial resources for the development and commercialization of printable electronics. ORFID will build certain organic devices and develop processes for printing and testing the devices. Both parties will share in intellectual property related to new technology developed during their collaboration. The parties will retain exclusive rights to their own pre-existing intellectual property.

Dr. Jonathan G. Lasch, chairman and CEO of ORFID, said, “ORFID Corporation is pleased to enter into a corporate collaboration with BASF, which is widely acknowledged to be at the forefront of innovation in advanced materials and processes for the production of organic electronics. Bringing together the global resources of BASF, ORFID’s novel organic electronic devices, and the expertise of our scientific founder, Dr. Yang Yang, and his team, at UCLA, will position our group very nicely to bring important new products, such as thin and flexible displays, and printable RFID tags, to market.”

ORFID has developed a breakthrough in organic electronics, called the VOFET (Vertical Organic Field Effect Transistor). Due to its unique architecture and use of conductive polymers (plastics that conduct electricity) in its fabrication, the VOFET offers performance characteristics similar to conventional, wafer-based silicon transistors, but can be produced at significantly lower cost, while offering other important advantages. Using organic materials, the VOFET can be manufactured using low-cost printing techniques. ORFID’s goal, and that of electronics manufacturers around the world, is to enable the production of a new generation of ultra-thin, light-weight and flexible electronic products, such as displays and “smart packaging” that incorporates printed RFID tags.

Through its collaboration with BASF, ORFID will gain access to advanced organic materials that offer the potential to dramatically enhance the performance and manufacturability of the VOFET.