FRANKFURT/MAIN, Germany — Intelligent packaging and security-enhanced passports could be two promising application fields for organic electronics in the near future. During the Organic Electronic Conference (OEC-06) here, companies unveiled more details.

Promising to be offered at very low price levels and typically having a short lifespan, organic electronics circuits could be the ideal technology for the enhancement of packaging articles, explained Eckard Braun, Business Segment Manager at Eurografica Systemplanung, in a presentation at the OEC-06. Eurografica has launched a project called Smart Packaging, with Smart standing for Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology.

Built-in electronics in package boxes for consumer items or drugs could be used as a protection measure against brand pirates, Braun explained. To achieve the necessary effect, printed RFID or NFC devices would be integrated into the packaging boxes, exchanging encrypted signals with a reader terminal and thus enabling a brand authentification.

Typical applications in the packaging area also could be electronic shelf labels (ESLs) that indicate the price of an item. These labels could be updated wirelessly at any given time, saving shop operators a significant amount of manpower, Braun explained. Equipped with temperature sensors, the labels also could indicate if a food or drug item had constantly been cooled. If the temperature at any given time had exceeded the limits, the label could issue a warning signal.

Since packaging is a very high volume multi-billion dollar business, adopting organic electronics in this application field would boost the volume of respective electronic devices accordingly, Braun said.

Another potentially promising market could be security applications like passports or access control systems. In two projects called Polysecure and Prisma, the German passport and banknote printing job Bundesdruckerei GmbH cooperates with companies of the organic electronics segment and other industries to develop organic circuits and include them into security relevant paper products.

The government-funded Polysecure project uses technology developed by the Fraunhofer IZM in Munich. Within the scope of the project, the Bundesdruckerei aims at assembling a document demonstrator with a ring oscillator, a display element and a driver IC and develop a suitable roll-to-roll printing process. The ring oscillator is contributed by PolyIC, a joint venture of Siemens and Leonhard Kurz GmbH & Co KG. In a series of trials, the Bundesdruckerei explored the optimum set of printing parameters like pressure, time and temperature, to achieve best results.

The Prisma project that also is funded by the research ministry and carried out in cooperation with PolyIC as well as with the Technical University of Munich, aims at laminating organic electronic into smartcards instead or paper. Again, the Bundesdruckerei tried to find out the optimum set of parameters for manufacturing.

While the results are not yet ready for volume production, the Bundesdruckerei is already looking beyond. In the next project, the company will explore ways to integrate bi-stable displays into security relevant documents or access cards. These devices do not require power to maintain their display information.