Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1481368
90 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2022 ucts that we're working on. We're not there yet, but there are applications that are looking for it. John Lee: Andy, where do you think printed electronics will go in 20 years? Andy Shaughnessy: at's what this is all about, really. We're trying to wrap our own heads around this. Like I said, we get inquiries from the readers and it's just one of these things where I don't have a handy expert on PEC to recommend. We do see a lot of action in flex- ible screens. Wagner: Flexible screens are everywhere. Sen- sitive touch and sensing everywhere, garments that can do just about anything as far as sensing remote healthcare. It's going that way now. It's just going to get better. Lee: Mike, do you think that's replacing PCBs or is it growing in parallel? Wagner: It's growing in parallel because even if you do a f lexible display, you still may need a PCB in some other part of the equip- ment, but it could be a copper flex circuit or it could be a printed circuit. It depends on how they develop all the other printed compo- nents: resistors, capacitors, memory, storage, batteries, etc. Tom Bianchi: ere's one example on YouTube that illustrates the future of printed electronic applications. It's a color-changing BMW that has the E-ink technology integrated onto it. Miller: ey had that car at LOPEC. It was really neat how it just went from white to dark. Bianchi: e benefit of working for our parent company Flex, which is an EMS company, is seeing and hearing what the industry is shi- ing toward. Clearly, electronics is ending up in places that we traditionally haven't seen or experienced. So, if you think about the future of cars, it's autonomous, electrified, smaller, and it will have more electronics. Well, where will you put all the electron- ics? How will you bend and curve them? A printed circuit board, by nature, doesn't bend and curve. Printed electronics, etched copper, is clearly the future of this industry that we're playing in. Just look at the nature of appli- ances over the years, how they've evolved and changed. It's just a start. I really do believe that we're just touching the beginning. It's about the industry coming together to Kevin Miller Mike Wagner John Voultos