The EU Horizon 2020 funded project Advanced High-Resolution Printing of Organic Transistors for Large Area Smart Surfaces (ATLASS) has started. It wants to help achieve the breakthrough of printed electronics in smart switching solutions.
The consortium is coordinated by Merck Chemicals Ltd., an affiliate of Merck KGaA, and consists of 15 international partners. These include 11 European companies and four research institutes spanning across the whole printed electronics value chain. The total budget of the project, which will run for three and a half years, is € 7.9 million.

The aim of ATLASS is to bring intelligence and communication to everyday objects such as temperature tags for smart food packaging, electronic labels for logistics, force sensing foils for automotive safety, and proximity sensing for safer human-robot collaboration. This concept is at the very heart of the megatrend of the Internet of Things, which will only be truly enabled by printed electronics technologies.

During the course of the project, the consortium will:

• Develop multifunctional materials;
• Develop and optimize high-resolution gravure printing and nano imprinting processes;
• Develop and integrate in-line optical inspection and yield management;
• Scale-up the materials and high-resolution printing technologies to demonstrate a high technology readiness level.

Partners include:

• Merck Chemicals Ltd., UK
• Merck KGaA, Germany;
• Arkema France SA, France;
• AMO GmbH, Germany;
• Commisariat à l ́énergie atomique et aux energies alternatives, France;
• Joanneum Research, Austria;
• VTT, Finland;
• GRT GmbH, Germany;
• In-Core Systems SARL, France;
• FlexEnable, UK;
• TU/e, Netherlands;
• Efficient Innovation SA, France;
• Thin Film Electronics AB, Sweden;
• Concept Tech GmbH,Austria;
• The Shadow Robot Company Ltd., UK.

• Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany