Electronic stickers to step up Internet of Things expansion

#News(IoTStack) [ via IoTForIndiaGroup ]

Researchers at Purdue University and the University of Virginia are just the latest to take on the challenge of getting physical objects connected to the IoT cheaper and easier. To this end, they’ve developed a new ultra-thin circuit fabrication method that promises to bring the IoT to pretty much any object you can slap a label onto.
Conventionally, most electronic circuits are printed on rigid silicon wafers. These stiff substrates need to be resilient enough to withstand the heat and chemical etching of the process, and as such, the wafer is replaced each time a new circuit is printed. This new technique, called “transfer printing,” allows a single wafer to be used over and over to build a near infinite number of flexible film-based circuits, which can be easily peeled off at room temperature by submerging the wafer and completed circuit in water.

“It’s like the red paint on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge – paint peels because the environment is very wet,” says Chi Hwan Lee, Purdue assistant professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering. “So in our case, submerging the wafer and completed circuit in water significantly reduces the mechanical peeling stress and is environmentally friendly.

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