 And we're here at the ID Tech X show. Hi. Hi. Welcome to our booth. I'm Justin Spitzer. We are here today at our ID Tech X booth from Molex Printed Circuit Solutions. And I'm going to talk to you a little bit about our capabilities and our manufacturing. All right. So what are these kinds of things you do here? So Molex manufactures two types of flexible circuitry. What you have up here is copper flex and then we also have silver flex. Copper flex is typical of your standard PCB manufacturing capabilities where it's a removal process, a copper substrate where additive flex or silver flex is an additive process where we're adding layers onto a single substrate. So how do you add those layers and what do you do there? So this is a silkscreen process and we're able to build the equivalent of a four to six layer PC board on one layer of substrate by adding layers of silver and dielectric and being able to create vias between top layers and bottom layers. And this is like the more traditional kind of PC to you? Yes. This is traditional copper flex. Multiple layers. You can get higher currents. So we offer customers the options for either one, whichever one is the best solution for their application. Is this more towards the printed electronics kind of world? Yes. This is what you would consider the new world of printed electronics. And what are you showing here in your hand? So this is a representative capability of a circuit that we have done where we have multiple layers, we have vias, we're representing, we've converted this from a PC board to a silver flex. We would be able to attach components and this is a representative of attaching a complex IC with solder. Is this like real or is it just a demonstration? This is a demonstration. This is a representative of an actual part though. But actually all these lines and dots and everything is actually something that could be functional? That is correct. Yes. But it's flexible. That is correct. So how much detail and how much, how complicated does it get? I mean how much is possible to do this kind of stuff? As I say, it's the equivalent of a four to six layer PC board. So you can do down to five mil, five thousandths of an inch space in trace and we can do the vias and so we are able to do build up multiple layers on the one layer of substrate. So four layer of this size or in conventional PCB would be smaller than that, right? Well it depends, the layers are going up, you're stacking layers on layers, but with a PCB you would typically be stacking material layers. Here we're just printing layers of ink, which is what makes it an additive process versus a removal process with the typical copper. And so this can be more cost effective. Right now we print on PET or polyesters, but in the future you will see it on fabrics and I'm sure you've seen it around, fabrics, paper, other materials, that's the benefit of doing additive manufacturing and it's also less harmful to the environment. Here's the representation of the PCB? Yes. So this is just again another representation of the PCB. Actually of the flexible substrate? Visitors of your booth can take this? Yes, exactly. This is a sample for anyone to come up and take and is representative of our capabilities. And you ship like billions of these kinds of things? In the millions? In the millions? Millions of these? Correct. You're one of the leaders in making this? I apologize. Are you one of the leaders in the industry? Yes, I believe we are. So we can take this from prototype concept to prototype to production and we've been doing this for over 20 years and there's some other implementations of things you're doing? So very good, yes. So we have NFC and we are now integrating wireless technology into it as we're able to get more dense and more complex components. What's that in here? So this is a representative of a conversion from a PCB kit to a silver flex kit and showing how you can actually bend the circuitry around corners. And so this is, it's called a liquid sand demo. So it has a gyroscope on it and as you tilt it, it will move the particles back and forth as representative of the old school liquid sand when kids were playing with it. What is this? And this is an NFC temperature patch. So this was a demonstration that this is able to measure temperature with an NFC charge that would come from your phone or other reader. There's no battery on this so it's dormant until you put the charge in. The antenna collects the energy, allows it to be powered with an NFC charger and then you're able to read the data back. So you're able to get temperature readings off of that. And the representative is you can put it on your body and basically measure your temperature or another product with a phone without having mechanical contact. This is a hybrid, right? There's a little chip? That is correct. And how do you put it exactly where it needs to be? So we have SMT capabilities, full SMT capabilities and we use either silver epoxy or low temp solder or the Sunray Z-Tac material. This is another demo? That's the same one, showing different materials. So we have clear materials, we have white materials, we can do it on different substrates. Nice. And you're showing some implementations of your tech over there? Yes, absolutely. So these are examples of what we can build with our technology and this is a building sensor that was developed by Oak Ridge National Labs. So we developed this for them and it has temperature, humidity and light and is based off the Lora Land network. So these can be put in a building and monitored of all sorts of areas around a building. So stuff is happening inside here? That is correct, yes. And with solar? And we integrated a solar panel into it. That's not the one you make? No, no, it's integrated and the chip, there's a battery in there for battery backup and also a Lora Land wireless network in there. And this is a humidifier? So this is a humidifier showing so that we are actively monitoring all the sensors in the booth and you can see here, so we have six sensors throughout the booth. We've demonstrated with light, heat and humidity so that we can show it actively working. Nice. And what's this one right here? So this is a representative of our capacitive user technology and so this is a demonstration of converting a demo to add onto a silver flex and be able to use capacitive technology with it and how it enables the backlighting. So you're able to backlight this with using clear conductive inks? So you just put some light through your transparent conductive systems? Correct, which you would not be able to do with a PC board. Nice. And this one? And this is another one of our demonstration units of implementing capacitive touch technology and proximity sensing. So we have a scroll wheel, we have our slider and then typical discreet buttons but it is also representative of the backlighting capability. The stuff is, is there like millions of these in the world? Yes. Yes. So you see that on set top boxes, you see that in cars, the new touch on cars, that's all a capacitive touch as well as on high end appliances. And that's flexible electronics that you do? Correct. Exactly. That's out there in the millions of units? What's this one? Right. So this is a Bluetooth temperature and pressure sensor built on our flexible circuitry. It was originally designed on a PC board. We converted it to a silver flex and it is actively monitoring temperature and pressure and transmitting it via Bluetooth to our tablet right here. And this is a flexible battery also? That is a flexible battery. Correct. You get with the partner? Yes. So we have batteries that we develop ourselves but we also use ones from partners and we integrate them into the circuitry. And then it just, this little thing sends over there? That is correct. Yes. And so we have right now, we have three attached and they are constantly monitoring the temperature and the pressure via Bluetooth and we've been able to test this up to about 200 meters so we can collect data from about 200 meters away. Something like this is going to last for a long time and basically between three and six months depending on the battery. But it's a small? Yes. So but it will last between three and six months. It depends on how often you're monitoring your temperature. Is something like this in the mass production? Is it big? Is it everywhere? So we have programs that have not been released yet but that are in going to production. That's what we do. We help, we work with customers to basically develop their product and bring it to production. Can you explain a little bit those? So there's one big chip there and what's the other stuff? So we may have ICs, we have other capacitors, resistors on there, there's a chip antenna and so it's all doing the processing in order to be able to transmit the data and this is based off of a Nordic chip set. So it's an NRF 51, something like that? That's correct. Is it really greatly suitable to this kind of flexible products to use a ARM Cortex M0 kind of device that like the Nordic? Oh absolutely, that's what we're demonstrating is that we can take PCB material products and convert them to SilverFlex. Nice. Alright and that's of course what this is demonstrating and then what we did is we built it into a smart label to represent what can be done with the technology. Are you working with any flexible CPUs? Yes, we are working with ASI as a partner to attach their chip sets with their flex dies. So ASI is doing some cool stuff? ASI is definitely doing some cool stuff, yes and we're working with them to basically integrate that into the flex materials. I would leave it to them to share what they're doing because they are our customer bars. Nice. And this is an NFC, this is a temperature logger. So it is logging temperature over time and it has a battery in it and one of the circuits over there is represented. So it has a battery, it has the electronics in it. NFC? Yes and so it's storing the data and then what you would do is take this, put it up to an NFC device like this, download the data and you would get all your data points. So this has got a little sticker thing, you can just put it on stuff? Correct. It's onto a product, a package and so there's the back side of the product. With battery? With battery, with two batteries, correct. And how long do you think the battery is going to last on this? On these, with these batteries they can last up to about six months. But it's crazy, it just looks like a little sticker. Yes, that is the goal. It's very thicker than a sticker. That's what people want. To give you the next generation of barcodes, right, you first had barcodes and then you had RFID, which is all static information. Now you're going to be able to get dynamic information. Where your package has been, has it maintained the right temperature? Has it had any shock to it? And eventually, potentially GPS so that if your package gets stolen or misplaced, where is your package? And so we will have smart labels that will be able to do that. Is there some other potential things that goes further away than NFC? Something like even cellular or something like that. Or is that too crazy to consider? In which? Like you were showing low-rah. And how long is the battery and the low-rah device right there? But you need to constantly charge it with solar. That's correct, yes. Right. Because you're transmitting more power. More power, farther distance, right? And that's the trade-off that you have right now with the batteries is that if you want a very thin, small battery, you're going to get a limited amount of lifetime. But is there any chance that you might just like ping every half hour? You can do that. And then still use a thin system like that kind of thing. That is correct. So that is the choice of how many times you want to get your data and be able to transmit it. So like with the Bluetooth, with the BLE, this will transmit up to about 200 meters. And you can set the amount of data time that you want to collect the data. And it will last probably between three and six months. But when you have a device that looks so cool like this one, let's say it lasts, you said, six months? Somewhere between three and six months. Again, it's about how often you're collecting the data and how often you're transmitting. How much of this is easy to recycle? Or what you're going to do after three or six months? Well, that is the key. Silver Flex is much more environmentally friendly than throwing away PC boards or Copper Flex. So that's where the future of this is going to go. So this is environmental friendly to use Silver. It's easy to melt back and reuse. Yes, it would be. And so if you have labels that are going to get thrown out, it would be easier to recycle. The batteries are moving towards more environmentally friendly batteries, the ones that you see here like this. Is this lithium ion? It's lithium ion, right? Because it needs to be, it's toxic a little bit. That is correct. So we do have a more environmentally friendly battery that we've licensed from on the MQ cell technology, which is the zinc manganese. And we can manufacture this with those batteries. But which other parts here are toxic? Anything? So the chips are the chips, but the encapsulant is more environmentally friendly. The Silver, the PET, it could be recycled. So it is more environmentally friendly. Nice. There's always a recycling process that you have, but it would not be toxic. Because this kind of stuff might be made into trillions. Exactly, right. At least billions. You want to have a nice kind of idea of what you want to do with all this stuff. Exactly. And potentially, we may see paper circuitry that would be more disposable. And so that's where we're going. This is the starting point. And then we'll get to more environmentally friendly products as it goes. What are you showing here? So this is the capability of using the printed electronics in medical applications. So this is an ECG vest, where instead of having the wires, now it's a single use device. You put it on the patient, and you're able to measure the body sensing. And then it does not to be cleaned. It gets recycled afterwards. So this is just kind of like a demo concept? So this is actually a customer's product that's out there. So why is it shaped like this with all these different? And where does it go inside the shirt? If you have an ECG, you have electrodes that go all over your body. And that's what it's monitoring. Where are the electrodes? So the electrodes would be here in these areas. And it's right there included, or you need to add something. So you would add hydrogel to this. And then you would just be able to stick it on. And that would be the electrode. Is there that many electrodes around there? Yes. Yes, depending on what a patient, what the doctor needs, the more electrodes you have, the better it is. But I mean, I don't think there's that many electrodes. But that's how the customer numbered it. And this is the power or something? The signal goes behind? This would be the connecting, yes. And where do you have the battery? So there is no battery. This would actually connect to their monitoring equipment in the hospital. So it's kind of like a. It's not wireless. And Friday, how does it trigger? Are you connected to a cable? Yes, it would still be hardwired to a cable. Somewhere the cable connects. There's some more stuff here and here. Right, so this was a demo about using a flexible circuit to help medicine absorb into the body through the skin. And we developed this as a trial with a customer. And so you have your medicine on your circuitry, and you're able to stimulate it and have it integrate and into the body more quickly. So electrodes are very, very popular. And we're seeing that medical companies want to be able to monitor more aspects of the body, whether you're walking around and you're not in a hospital environment. And the silver and the flexible circuitry is going to allow that. So how's being the ID Tech Act show for you? Oh, it's great. It's actually wonderful. People are getting exposed to our capabilities. The one question that's always asked is can you actually manufacture this in production? And the answer is yes. That we can go from concept to development all the way up in scale into the millions or tens of millions of pieces if needed, or hundreds of millions. And yesterday I was doing lots of videos around the hall. I think I've seen your brand several places. You have lots of partners here, right? Yes, we do. Right, so we're working with a lot. Can you mention some? Well, ASI and Sunray are ASI, American Semiconductor and Sunray, Scientific are two of our partners here. So I don't know if there's others, but yes, we do have a number that we are working with. And for example, with Sunray, they have some technology to connect the chip nicely. That is correct, right. And ASI is doing some flexible chips. To flex ties, that is correct, yes. But there's all kinds of other stuff happening here, right? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. There's a lot of interesting things here. What we look for is what's going to be able to scale up to higher value in production. And so we're always looking for those new technologies. So this is a very good place to be from both sides. This is the big topic. The big goal of the IDTech Actual is to get to what's in the next trillion dollar industry, right? Correct. And what's going to be all over the place? How soon are you going to put all these, like in the carpets, in the tables? So carpets, tables, and these kind of things, and take the bottle? Exactly. But it's really about where the value, where you're going to get the value of the data, right, of the feedback. Just because you can put electronics into it, what's the value to either the consumer or the manufacturer, those are the things that are going to determine whether it's going to be successful or not, right? How much value does that data have that you're getting back? Or are you attracting more users because of the indication? Those are all the things that we'll go into to determine whether what you have is going to be successful. And is all this stuff potentially cheaper, more affordable than traditional ways of doing electronics? In the general sense, it is more cost competitive. If you can do it in a PC board, PC boards are usually going to be the way that you're going to do it, but there's other value for these. This material is very cost-effective. The silver is cost-effective. Additive manufacturing is cost-effective. You don't have as many toxins in the environment. So there are definitely benefits for this. And the additive printing process can allow for it to scale up much faster. And do you partner with ink providers? Or do you make your own? We actually have a number of ink partners that are probably here from Henkel, Dupont. Everybody's here, and we're working with a number of them. And the substrates, the plastics? The substrates, there's different substrates. And we have a number of different coatings. And the batteries. And the batteries, right, exactly. So we're looking at everybody's technology here and seeing how we can integrate it into ours. And that's why it's a really good time to be at ID TechX to see what's happening.