PACES+ (Printed Analogue Circuits for Embedded Sensors)

This project addresses a growing need for integrated printed electronics (PE) to provide
innovative and value-adding features on plastic and other cheap substrates (paper/card) to
sectors such as medical, automotive and consumer goods. The PE market is estimated to be
£1.5B today, growing to £30B by 2021 and £200B by 2027 (IDTechEx), including electronic
smart packaging devices (projected to grow from £0.02B in 2012 to £1B/35B units in 2022).
Printed logic circuits, predicted to be the largest sector (38%, IDTechEx), will introduce
intelligence and interactivity in form-factors that don’t currently exist in the marketplace.
This project builds on previous PoC project PACES which successfully demonstrated a novel
comparator circuit design based on PragmatIC’s thin-film semiconductor technology.
Comparator circuits built from printed electronic (PE) components are key requirements to
interface flexible analogue sensors with PE digital logic, enabling large-scale, flexible smart
sensing systems to be realized. These are a necessary building block for wider applications
where conventional Si approaches cannot be applied due to cost or form-factor. The most
promising of these emerging markets are the near-term, wireless sensing network (WSN) and
the longer-term emerging vision, the Internet of Things (IoT). These technological
developments will allow everyday objects to transmit data that can be processed through the
Internet and reacted upon accordingly. Examples include smart tags that can monitor
temperature or humidity on food or pharmaceuticals packaging. PE devices have to date been
applied to digital applications, but there is now a requirement for thin-film analogue circuitry
to interface digital electronics with sensors. Several product demonstrators will be produced
to validate the systems, and these will be investigated for temperature and lifetime stability.