Xaar Plc and Thin Film Electronics Sign Development Agreement.

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Xaar plc, a market leader in industrial ink jet technology, and Thin Film Electronics ASA ("TFE"), the leading provider of non-volatile polymer memory technologies, announced today that they have entered into an agreement to jointly develop industrial inkjet methods and processes that can be used for producing printed memory applications efficiently and in high volumes suitable for commercial applications.

"Last year we demonstrated the world's first functional, fully printed memory together with Xaar. We will now prove our technology's manufacturability using industry standard ink-jet equipment for high volumes. Xaar is an ideal partner for us given Xaar's technology and market leadership in ink-jet technology. Furthermore, the collaboration with Xaar will open up new exciting opportunities for the printed electronics industry, including many long sought after applications such as RFID-based electronic product codes"; says Johan Carlsson, CEO of Thin Film Electronics.

Werner Zapka, head of Xaar's Advanced Applications Technology team, stated that; "We have together with TFE already demonstrated a fully printed functional memory with unique characteristics using Xaar's ink-jet technology. As the printed electronics market continues to evolve and expand, we see numerous opportunities for products that include memory and a market need for our ink-jet solutions for production of printed electronics products in general. In this joint effort with TFE, we will demonstrate that our industrial ink-jet manufacturing technology is capable of controlling material properties to produce devices with desired electronic functionality. To verify this, we are under this joint development agreement planning to produce thousands of product samples at our manufacturing and development site in Jarfalla, Sweden."

Printed Electronics

Printed electronics is a rapidly emerging industry that takes advantage of high-speed and low-cost printing technologies to manufacture electronics in a wide variety of form factors, including on thin and/or flexible substrates. Through the use of printing techniques and functional materials, electronic circuits can be manufactured very efficiently and in high volumes as compared to traditional electronics fabrication methods. This new enabling technology will permit electronic functionality to be embedded into products that were previously considered incompatible due to cost, performance or form-factor limitations.