Oct 3 2007
PETeC is a national prototyping institute for the development and commercialisation of printed electronics. Customers of the centre will be able to test design concepts and novel materials for a variety of products including Thin Film Transistors (TFT) for flexible displays including E-paper, Organic Photovoltaic cells (OPVs) and Solid State Lighting (SSL) applications.
Cenamps, a UK based centre for emerging small-scale technologies, in collaboration with the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) is managing and delivering the PETeC project and has gathered the funds to build and operate the Centre from regional, national and European sources, including contributions from the Department of Trade and Industry and the European Union.
€14million is being invested in the first phase of PETeC, which has already lined up several European based companies that will utilise the Centre to test and develop their new organic electronic prototypes.
PETeC is an ideal facility for start-ups and larger manufacturing companies to get prototype production up and running. The Centre’s in-house staff and access to state-of-the-art printers and coating machines will be able to improve first generation products more efficiently for the Centre’s customers.
Procurement of equipment is already underway for printing conductive inks, metallised circuits and novel barrier layers onto flexible substrates and further R&D programmes for new customers will be introduced in the coming months.
The Centre is expected to open in July 2008, bringing together the right balance of skills and equipment to support the burgeoning plastic electronics industry in the UK and draw in customers on a global scale.