TERASEL, A New European Effort To Develop Industrial Production Chain For Manufacturing Randomly Shaped Electronic Circuits

Conventionally, electronics are made on flat substrates. The TERASEL project will developa basic technology platform for rigid large-area randomly shaped electronic circuits. To achieve this, a process to embed elastic flat circuits in thermo-plastically deformable polymers will be developed. Then, a high pressure, low temperature thermoforming technology to deform the circuit into its random final functional shape will be developed.

TERASEL will also set up a complete multi-competence industrial production chain, capable to achieve mature, near-to-production industrial processes for manufacturing randomly shaped circuits. The developed technologies will be applied in a number of functional prototype demonstrators, such as television sets with ambient illumination, free-form man-machine interfaces, intelligent car interior components, 2.5D lighting devices, and household appliances.

“TERASEL will draw upon the synergy and collaboration between partners in the electronics circuit fabrication and assembly industry and polymer processing industry”, said Jan Vanfleteren, Project Manager at imec. “By merging the two industries’ competences and expertise, the project will produce an exciting new range of products for a wide set of application domains.”

Over the next three years, TERASEL will be coordinated by imec, through imec’s associated laboratory located at the Ghent University (Center for Microsystems Technology (CMST)). Industrial, academic and research partners will bring their expertise to the project. Project partners are Centro Ricerche Fiat (Italy), Fraunhofer IZM, Freudenberg Forschungsdienste, Niebling (Germany), Nief Plastic, Association Pôle Européen de Plasturgie (France), TNO/Holst Centre, Philips Lighting (Netherlands), plastic electronic (Austria), ACB, Page Electronica, Quad Industries, TP Vision and Fundico (Belgium).