USDC Prepares for Record Turnout at Flexible Displays & Microeletronics Conference

February 4 may be Super Bowl Sunday, but for everyone who’s anyone in the flexible electronics industry, February 5 marks the kick off of the Sixth Annual Flexible Displays and Microelectronics Conference, hosted by the USDC.

To be held February 5-8 at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in Phoenix, Ariz., the USDC conference provides a public forum to share information, progress, strategies and visions for furthering the advancement of flexible displays and microelectronics technologies. This year, attendance is expected to reach an all-time high, and it’s no wonder with several new and exciting features added to the program.

The conference will begin with a half-day course delivered by Motorola on the application of printing technologies to pattern organic and inorganic microelectronics components and devices. Aiming to spur commercialization, this forum will enable collaboration between industry, academia and government in order to tackle the current challenges, and to learn of the latest technological developments that will drive these markets from concept to fruition.

Starting on the second day of the conference, leading market research firms, including DisplaySearch, DisplayBank, cintelliq and Nano Markets, will provide their latest insights and outlooks on the markets and applications. In addition, more than 50 papers will be presented by leading chemical, materials and electronics companies such as Philips, Motorola, Kodak, Dow Corning, Applied Materials and Hewlett Packard, on their latest findings in flexible displays and microelectronics.

For the first time ever, USDC has added a second track to the agenda, which will be dedicated specifically to printed and organic electronics—an emerging market that promises to revolutionize the electronics industry. USDC has made the flexible, printed and organic electronics market an important focus of its efforts, and launched a new initiative this past November to spur its development and growth (read the article, “USDC Flexes its Muscles to Commercialize FPO Electronics,” in this issue of DisplayTrends for more detail).

Also on the conference agenda, USDC will feature student poster papers represented by prestigious universities such as Arizona State, Duke, Penn State, Lehigh, Princeton and the University of Rochester. The student poster paper sessions will run concurrently with an exhibitor forum during the breakout sessions for all three days of presentations.

Referring to the upcoming Flexible Displays and Microelectronics Conference, Dr. M. Robert Pinnel, CTO for USDC and conference organizer, stated, “Since our conference’s debut, we’ve seen many innovation developments and enormous advancements, due in large part to the industry collaborations that have been created and revealed at this event. We expect the 2007 conference to bring many of the brightest minds back together again to explore how this exciting technology will proliferate, empower and enhance our national security interests, as well as our work and home environments in ways some deemed unimaginable or viewed with some skepticism just a few years ago. It’s clearly no longer a question of if, but rather, a question of when and how this technology will be applied—and that’s what this conference intends to answer.”

Visit www.usdc.org to view the latest agenda or register for Flexible Displays and Microelectronics Conference.