Michael Andrews
L-3 Communications
Dr. Andrews began by noting that the study of future of the flexible electronics industry is a part of a larger subject—the role of manufacturing in the growth and economic security of the United States. He said that the first point to clarify was the definition of flexible electronics. This was a point often left unanswered, he said, because it means different things in terms of substrates and technological application. “But at the end of the day,” he said, “it gets down to where it fits into some desire for products that are lighter weight, more rugged, and more capable, both for the commercial world and for providing security for the nation.” He said that the workshop was likely to struggle with this issue to some extent, and that it might strive to develop an “umbrella” definition that would capture the general features of flexible electronics.
In a broader context, he said, the likelihood that flexible electronics will produce jobs is great. “A new technology always has the potential to create many jobs,” he said, “but the underlying elements of this technology can reach across many applications.” He said that his own familiarity with the subject came out of a military perspective, from which he saw “great advantages in being able to lighten the load that our soldiers and marines on the ground have to carry.” He noted that flexible electronics was also bringing a new generation of sensors to aircraft, including more information about structural dynamics. The subject applied as well to the work of the Department of Homeland Security, where it promised to address critical infrastructure issues. But the “heart of the debate” about flexible electronics, he said, was its potential to spawn many new subindustries and applications throughout the economy, especially in new forms of display, lighting, sensing, and imaging, all of which may be manufactured by efficient roll-to-roll technology.
Dr. Andrews acknowledged the “great debates” in the United States about how best to sustain domestic manufacturing and economic growth. “Many other nations don’t have such debates,” he said, “they just go do it. Our challenge is how we can better do these things, which is always tough. We’ve invested reasonably well in the basic research, and in some of the applied technology areas. It’s time to hit harder on developing prototypes and demonstrations, and in advancing the technology to the next level of manufacturing.”
Based on the workshop and the deliberations of the STEP board members, he said, the STEP panel would develop recommendations on these questions to the nation. It would be looking in particular at better models for collaboration and community to develop the technologies, which were both “very difficult.” He said that the virtue of collaboration was that it could make “one plus one equal three,” but the hard question was how to apply the best balance of incentives to make this happen.
