By Han Joo-yeob
powerusr@ddaily.co.kr

Merck, a German chemical and pharmaceutical company, announced on Sept. 12 that a consortium of 10 partners led by Merck, has successfully completed the two-year project ‘Polytos2: Printed Organic Circuits and Memory’ after two years of research and development. The Polytos2 project was funded with EUR 4.8 million by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF).

Through the project, Merck developed new semiconductor polymers with high charge carrier mobility as well as other organic materials for producing printed transistors and circuits. Printing machines specifically developed to meet the properties of such materials enable easy, low-cost printing of the electronic components onto plastic films. As the properties of these innovative components differ completely from those of conventional components based on silicon technology, this will open up totally new applications, Merck said. For example, the smart labels, which are equipped with a temperature sensor, will allow food monitoring. Readers designed specifically for organic electronics have been also developed as well as the software solutions that make it possible to read and efficiently handle logistic and product-related data.

Aside from Merck, nine companies and institutes participated in the consortium. They are: BASF SE, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, Mannheim University of Applied Sciences, Pepperl + Fuchs GmbH, PolyIC GmbH &Co. KG, Robert Bosch GmbH, SAP AG, TU Darmstadt, Heidelberg University, and University of Mannheim. Associated partners were Innovation- Lab GmbH and VARTA Microbattery GmbH.