Secretary of Defense Ash Carter today will announce a five-year, $75 million contract award to a consortium of companies, universities and independent research organizations to stand up a major manufacturing facility based in the Silicon Valley for bendable and wearable hybrid electronics.
The Pentagon’s investment in the FlexTech Alliance Consortium will be matched by more than $90 million in private sector funding, bringing the total investment in research, dvelopment and manufacturing to $171 million. Carter is scheduled to announce the contract today during a speech at Moffett Air Field in Mountainview, Calif., where he will also host the first-ever industry roundtable at the newly-established Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental (DIUx) — a small unit designed to be the Pentagon’s point-of-presence and coordinating hub in the Silicon Valley.
“Secretary Carter is demonstrating tangible progress in building relationships with Silicon Valley, which he believes is necessary to help the U.S. military remain on the cutting edge well into the future,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook. “The public private partnership he is announcing at Moffett Field will benefit both the future warfighter and customers of a range of U.S. companies, helping the U.S. maintain leadership in manufacturing and innovation for years to come.”
Flexible hybrid electronics manufacturing is a process that combines the traditional manufacturing techniques of the electronics industry and the high-precision printing industry, with the power to create sensors that can be lighter in weight, or conform to the curves of a human body, and stretch across the shape of an object or structure. “Integrating ultra-thin silicon components — through high precision handling, printing with conductive and active inks, and pasting on stretchable substrates — flexible hybrid technologies can revolutionize how we wear and monitor our own physiological information to optimize health and lifestyles, while improving the connectivity of devices through the ‘Internet of Things,'” according to a White House fact sheet obtained by MeriTalk.
The manufacturing facility will be the seventh of nine established to date as part of the Obama administration’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, launched in 2012.”After a decade of decline in the 2000s, when 40 percent of all large factories closed their doors, American manufacturing is adding jobs at its fastest rate in decades, with nearly 900,000 new manufacturing jobs created since February 2010,” the White House fact sheet states. “Today’s new action is the kind of investment we need to build on this progress, creating the foundation for American manufacturing leadership for years to come.”
Hybrid Electronics
The emerging field of hybrid electronics enables the placement of electronic components on flexible stretchable substrates while preserving the full operation of traditional electronic circuits in wearable and flexible form factors. The devices can be attached to curved, irregular and often stretched across buildings, objects, and humans. According to the White House and Pentagon, there are a wide array of potential applications for such devices, including:
- Revolutionizing electronic wearable information devices to monitor vital signs and physical states to optimize health and lifestyles decisions.
- Dramatically improving medical technology delivery — through biomarkers and device implants — which can monitor vital signs for the elderly, those with chronic conditions, and our soldiers during combat.
- Enabling embedded sensors to monitor the state of commercial automobiles and aircrafts operating in harsh environments such as undersea pressures or extreme temperatures.
- Improving security operations, with applications in light weight robotics, as well as, next generation imaging and sensing capabilities, used across the entire spectrum of land, air, sea, and space-based systems.
- Dramatically reducing the electronic systems package size and weight through electronics that conform to complex shapes such as aircraft wings or unattended vehicle platforms, and integrating electronics in clothing and fabrics.
The Winning Team
The winning team, led by the FlexibleTech Alliance and headquartered in San Jose, CA, and includes the following 96 key partners and 66 additional consortia members across the country:
96 Companies:
4D Technology
ABRe
Acellent Technologies
Advantest Akron Polymer Systems
AlphaMicron
American Semiconductor
Apple
ANSYS
Applied Materials
Bestronics
Blue Spark Technologies
BMNT Partners
Boeing Co.
Brewer Science
Butler Technologies
Carpe Diem Technologies
Chasm Technologies
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Medical Devices
Corning, Cubbison Company
Domtar, Dupont Plates
Dupont Teijin Films
E Ink
Eastman Chemical Company
Eli Lilly and Company
EMD Milipore
EnerDel
Engineered Materials Systems
ENrG
ExSys Technology
FLEXcon
Flex
Fujifilm Dimatix
General Dynamics Land Systems
General Motors
General Electric
GrafTech
HANA Microdisplay Technologies
Harper Corporation
Harris Corporation
Henkel AG
HP
i3 Electronics
IMA Life
Imprint Energy
Integrated Deposition Solutions
Intrinsiq Materials
IQRMI
Jabil Circuit
John Deere
Kellogg Company
Kent Displays
Kodak
Landauer
LasX
Lockheed Martin
Lumitex
Mac Arthur Corporation
Mark Andy
MC10
MIRWEC Films
Molex, Motorola Mobility
Novacentrix
ON Semiconductor
Optomec
Orbital Research
PARC, a Xerox Company
Polyera
Quality Electrodynamics
Qualcomm
Raytheon Company
Roche Diagnostics
SABIC
SAIC
Sandisk
Sensics
Si2
SmarchShape
Smith&Nephew
SPEC Sensors
Sonoran Analytical Instruments and Diagnostics
SSI Electronics
Surfx Technologies
Sun-Tec
Thin Film Technology
TI
TTM Technologies
UES
Uniqarta
United Technologies Research Center
Valtronic Technologies
Vitriflex