Oct 24 2008
The international chemical and pharmaceutical group Solvay today signs an agreement to become part of the research network of Holst Centre, an open-innovation initiative by IMEC (Belgium) and TNO (The Netherlands).
Flexible organic electronics – or systems-in-foil – will in the future be driven by an industry producing, laminating and combining a variety of smart foils. As an example, one can envisage light-emitting foils, memory- and processing foils being powered by a battery- or organic photovoltaic (OPV), forming products like intelligent wall-paper, smart bandages and smart windows. This requires an entire chain of production, involving companies with dedicated knowhow in one or some of the intermediate steps. Getting a systems-in-foil product efficiently to the market will therefore require insight in the vast number of possible technologies and solutions. Also, this allows industrial standardization being set-up in an early stage.
To support this vision, Holst Centre gathers an entire ecosystem of materials suppliers, equipment vendors and integrated device manufacturers around a shared research program with a well-defined central roadmap. Solvay is the newest partner joining in the Systems-in-Foil program. It thereby adds another impressive name to a list of world-leading partners (both large multinationals as SMEs): ASML, Agfa, Akzo Nobel, Bekaert, Huntsman, Merck, NXP, Orbotech, Philips, Polymer Vision and Singulus Mastering.
The contract is signed between Solvay and TNO, coordinator of the Systems-in-Foil program. By joining the program, Solvay will actively take part in the research on-site of the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, where Holst Centre is located. Industrial residents of Solvay will join forces with the interdisciplinary teams of Holst Centre researchers, PhDs and industrial residents of the other program partners.