Case Study: Applying printed semiconductors (Printed Electronics Europe 2005)

Tuomas Mustonen, currently 27 years, graduated as Master of Sciences from the University of Jyväskylä in 2002. His major subject was Industrial Paper Physics and Chemistry, including also studies in electronics, business and leadership.

 

Already before graduation, Tuomas Mustonen had worked in M-real for over two years in total. After graduation, he was assigned as the project manager of Smart Products project. The project has already been established in 2000, and Tuomas Mustonen has run the project successfully since 2002.

 

Tuomas Mustonen is based at M-real Technology Centre Äänekoski, which is situated in the beautiful Central Finland.

Employing almost 16,000 people, M-real is one of the leading paper companies in Europe. Through its worldwide sales network, M-real serves its customers who mostly comprise publishers, printers, paper merchants, offices as well as carton printers and well-known consumer product companies. M-real provides excellent wood fibre-based solutions for consumer packaging, communications and advertising end-uses. Together with its customers and partners, M-real develops solutions for demanding end-use, such as magazines, art books, brochures, direct mail, office papers, as well as packages for beauty health care products, cigarettes, branded food and consumer electronics.

 

The company focuses on four core businesses: Consumer Packaging, Publishing, Commercial Printing and Office Papers. The Map Merchant Group is M-real´s paper merchant.

 

Headquartered in Finland, M-real Corporation is listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. The company turnover in 2004 was EUR 5.5 billion.

 

M-real and especially the Consumer packaging business aims at fulfilling the growing need for packaging solutions for the brand owners. One of the largest and fastest growing needs is for brand protection.

 

There are no shortages of technical solutions to brand protection, since it is not "one size fits all" problem. RFID has been touted as a possible cure-all for counterfeiting, but that is not true. RFID application volumes are driven by cost, so at current levels of 30-50 cents per tag, only pallets, cases and high value items justify tagging.

 

Main advantages of RFID are the easy, non-line of sight and quick read-out of information. The tags usually also have a high information capacity and they may have the possibility to write information. Thus RFID is beginning to be a standardized technology.

 

The memory system, HidE, developed by M-real in co-operation with HUT, VTT and Panipol, is a solution for item level identification. It is a printed low cost memory system, with information capacity comparable to conventional RFID. Information can also be stored according to EPC Tag Data Standards.