The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has published the first standard “63899-202-10: Printed Electronics – Materials – Resistance measurement on thermoformable conducting” providing the printed electronics industry a standardized way to characterize the material. Finnish Structural Electronics pioneer TactoTek has led the standard development project that is part of Technical Committee (TC119) activities. First proposed by TactoTek, the development project initiated in 2019 has now resulted in this standard, which enables Injection Molded Structural Electronics (IMSE) designers to create optimized designs with standardized materials.
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Standardized Characterization of Materials Enables IMSE®-Optimized Materials
Creating smart functional electronics with IMSE requires thermoforming, i.e. creating shapes from flat 2D functional films with printed circuitry and mounted components. Thermoforming elongates the printed layers, causing resistivity changes that should be considered during the design phase. Using a standardized measurement method ensures comparability of the results and leads to optimization of the designs/materials. The standard defines the terminology and measurement methods for characterizing the resistance change of conductive ink traces as a function of thermoplastic elongation and is applicable to thermoformable surfaces with conductive ink layers.
IEC and Other Leading Technical Bodies Enable the Adoption of New Technology
Accredited bodies like IEC creating standards enable confidence in new and innovative technologies. With over 170 nations, IEC has an expert pool to peer review technology and create standards. According to Paavo Niskala, SVP of IMSE Technology at TactoTek, “TactoTek sees that standardization will speed up the industrialization of structural electronics technologies such as Injection Molded Structural Electronics (IMSE). Thus, TactoTek wants to disseminate some of its knowledge through standardization work. We see that IEC's way of working and input from other TC119 National Committees has been beneficial in developing the standard and the structural electronics industry as a whole.”
