Thinfilm Builds First Stand-alone Smart Sensor Label

OSLO, NORWAY—October 16, 2013—Thin Film Electronics ASA (“Thinfilm”) (OSE: THIN.OL) has successfully demonstrated its first fully functional, stand-alone Smart Sensor Label. The temperature-tracking label, designed for monitoring of perishable goods, demonstrates a complete closed system built from printed and organic electronics.

The temperature monitoring market is predicted to reach over $3.2 billion USD by 2020. Growing at 9 percent annually, the market is driven by a global need to reduce waste and improve safety of perishable goods. For example, Thinfilm’s Smart Label will help pharmaceutical companies keep temperature-sensitive products safe and effective, while preventing the unnecessary destruction of usable products. Retailers using temperature-monitoring labels during shipment of produce and other food products will have immediate insight with regards to both shelf life and food safety.

Davor Sutija, Thinfilm CEO, explains why temperature monitoring is just the beginning. “The integration of memory and logic creates an extensible platform, on which we will be able to create a wide variety of low-cost electronics in a label format. Printing provides scale and cost advantages that cannot be matched by any other electronic technology. With our customers, we are delivering the ubiquitous intelligence necessary to turn the Internet of Things into the Internet of Everything.”

The system announced today is the first demonstration of a stand-alone, integrated printed electronic system powered solely by batteries. According to Christer Karlsson, Thinfilm CTO, “A key breakthrough for this demo was the low-voltage complementary logic we announced in June of this year. Polyera and our other materials partners have played an essential role in helping us move products forward.”

In the system demonstrated today, organic logic detects that a critical temperature threshold has been exceeded and signals the display driver to turn on a segmented display. Prior important technical milestones include:

• Low-voltage display driver based on complementary organic logic (June 2013)
• Memory write based on detection of temperature thresholds (December 2012)
• Full addressing logic for multi-bit read-write of printed memory (October 2011)

Thinfilm has now demonstrated all components necessary to produce its first system products by end of 2014.

About Thin Film Electronics ASA
Thin Film Electronics ASA ("Thinfilm") is a leader in the development of Printed Electronics. The first to commercialize printed rewritable memory, Thinfilm is creating printed system products that will include memory, sensing, display and wireless communication—at a cost-per-functionality unmatched by any other electronic technology. Thinfilm's roadmap of system products integrates technology from a strong and growing ecosystem of partners to enable the Internet of Things by bringing intelligence to disposable goods. Company headquarters are in Oslo, Norway, with product development in Linköping, Sweden, sales offices in San Francisco, USA, and Tokyo, Japan, and manufacturing in Pyongtaek, South Korea. Follow Thinfilm on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Source: Thin Film Electronics ASA.