Novel Roll-to-Roll Equipment for R&D and Pilot/Series Production of Flexible Electronics (Printed Electronics Europe 2014)

VDL FLOW of The Netherlands has created a novel roll-to-roll (R2R) concept for the manufacturing of flexible OPV and CIGS solar cells, large-area OLED lighting, flexible displays, batteries, sensors and circuits. This concept handles the web without touching at all its functional side, features stand-alone or in-series operation of individual R2R modules, allows for extensions or replacement of drying and curing ovens, and offers the possibility to combine R2R and S2S processes. In addition, the R2R line has been designed to limit the cost of the cleanroom when contamination-free environments are required and to optimize the footprint on the factory floor. All these specific features along with a unique capability to deposit functional layers simultaneously on two sides of the web (useful for flexible batteries) will enable together a high-yield low-cost production of flexible electronics once the R&D and pilot phases on the same line have been left behind.

Sorin G. Stan has a technical background in electrical engineering, mechatronics, electronics, IC design, and semiconductors manufacturing. He also holds a Ph.D. degree in nonlinear automatic control from Eindhoven University of Technology. Throughout his career, Mr. Stan was involved in many system architectures and product development activities and has accumulated a broad management expertise in leading technology programs, marketing, business development, corporate strategy, etc. at organizational levels varying from research laboratory to company division and CTO.

VDL FLOW is a system integrator primarily focusing on the development and realization of high-performance roll-to-roll (R2R) production equipment for printed electronics applications. Examples of such applications are flexible solar panels including OPV- and CIGS-based technologies, large-area OLED lighting and displays, thin-film sensors and batteries. The company also has extensive experience in sheet-to-sheet (S2S) manufacturing equipment operating under various environmental conditions like vacuum, cleanroom, nitrogen atmosphere, etc. FLOW stands for Functional Layers On Web. VDL FLOW is an enterprise within VDL Enabling Technologies Group (VDL ETG), The Netherlands, which is part of the parent Dutch company VDL Groep.