Printed Light with A*Star

PRINTED LIGHT

Licensed By A*Star

Printed Light or Electroluminescent (EL) lights devices such as EL panels or EL strips are low-energy, cost effective and flexible lighting tools for many applications such as in interior design, intelligent packaging, entertainment and advertisement. But these are the general thoughts that could interest very huge market opportunities. WORLDBIZZ is a CIP (Collaborative Industry Project) member working with SIMTech and A*STAR on the EL technology to commercialize the Printed Light technology into applications that uses acrylic panels.

Printed lighting is a demonstrator of roll-to-roll large area printing technology where the electrically functional inks are deposited on roll of light weight, thin and flexible substrates such as plastic or metal foil. It is flexible and provides large area illumination which requires no additional clearance and space for housing and mounting frames. It is cool to touch and does not require bulky heat sinks to dissipate the heat. Its sleek dimensions and uniform diffused light without the use of complex optics is both commercially attractive and appealing for a wide ranging application.

FEATURES

Ultra-thin (< 1mm) and light weight (< 1kg for 1m²)
Flexible form, can be contoured on curve surface or thermoformed
Diffused uniform aerial light source, non-glaring
Negligible heat generation and cool-to-touch
Roll-able with large width and cascade-able to unlimited size
Ease of installation and maintenance
Plug and play. Suitable for both indoor/outdoor deployment

APPLICATION

Advertising, Art installation, Architecture, Furnishing, Automotive and Smart Packaging

OPTICAL PROPERTIES

Light Colour1 (Primary) : Blue, Green, Bluish White, White

Width2 of Illumination Area : 0.83m

Brightness3 : (100 to 500) lux

Ambient lighting affects the visibility of the Printed Lighting. Increase in voltage and frequency can increase the lighting brightness but this affects the durability. Alternatively, is to widen the contrast between the lighted zone and its adjacent surface through creative graphics overlay design

ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES / INVERTERS

Input Voltage : AC 110 / 230V ~ 50Hz; DC 5.5V to 24V

Output Voltage : (90 -150)VAC

Output Frequency : (300 – 1200) Hz

Power Consumption : 50-80 Watts per m2

OPERATING TEMPERATURE : -20oC to 45oC

DURABLITY4 : >10,000 Hours

INSTALLATION:

Below setup is an example of connecting the printed lighting (EL) panel and inverter to the AC power source. The selection of inverter is based on the lighted area and brightness required.

PACKAGING

Standard packaging includes lamination suitable for both indoor and short term outdoor deployment. For application where harsh environment is expected or safety requirement, different packaging design can be applied. To be further discussed with SIMTech application team.

Notes

*1 – Other colour can be achieved by adding filter.

*2 – Physical roll width is 0.92m with lamination edge and busbar. Typical illumination

width is limited is 0.83m. Cascading can be used to expand to any length and width.

*3 – The brightness and colour tone can be varied by adjusting the output voltage and

frequency.

*4 – This is defined when brightness is reduced by 50%. Printed Lighting will continue to

operate after 50% life and brightness will eventually plateau to a certain level.

Useful life can be extended with reduced brightness and frequency and match with

inverter.

ROLL TO ROLL, FLEXIBLE AND MULTI-FUNCTIONAL

Conventional electronic circuit fabrication relies on lithography and subtractive processes. The growing need to achieve cost effective, energy-efficient and environmentally friendly manufacturing is driving a paradigm shift towards large area manufacturing processes, widely known as printed electronics.

Mission

To seed and grow emerging industry in functional films and printed electronics through research, innovation and commercialization of large area manufacturing technology platforms in manufacturing processes, manufacturing automation and manufacturing systems.

Core Competencies

Key competencies supported by our own integrated cleanroom facilities and research laboratories include:

Formulation and processing of printable functional materials
Large area and roll-to-roll coating
Large area and roll-to-roll additive patterning
Large area and roll-to-roll embossing
Large area and roll-to-roll lamination
High precision roll-to-roll web handling

High Precision roll-to-roll web inspection
In-situ roll-to-roll system process monitoring and control
Roll-to-roll manufacturing system design, planning and scheduling

Major Facilities

800m² Class 10K cleanroom
Roll-to-roll and modular processing system for large web (web width of 1m) and pilot scale coating, patterning and lamination
Roll-to-roll embossing system
Roll-to-roll coating system
Roll-to-panel-to-roll screen printing system
Screen printer
Ink-jet printed
Thermal, infra-red and UV curing systems

Research Projects

Roll-to-roll Manufacturing of Printed Electronics

The project focuses on research and development of scalable and high precision roll-to-roll manufacturing technology platforms for large area functional films and printed electronics.

The scope includes:

Formulation and processing of printable grapheme based transparent conductors and semiconductors
Formulation and processing of printable battery electrodes and electrolytes. Formulation and processing of printable photovoltaic materials

High precision roll-to-roll processes for surface area dependent devices including transparent conductive film, battery and photovoltaic
High precision roll-to-roll additive and direct-write patterning processes for feature-size dependent devices including touch screen, display and electronic backplane
Low temperature ink sintering techniques
Large Area Printing of Frequency Selective and Active Devices

The project focuses on research and development of scalable and high precision thick-film and thin-film printing processes for large area frequency selective electromagnetic passive and active devices

The scope includes:

Design and characterization of electromagnetic shielding films
Design and characterization of near-field and far-field antennas
High precision thick-film and thin-film printing of circuits and interconnects
Low-temperature processing of copper based inks