Flexible Electronics Industry Experts to Deliver Joint Keynote During 2017FLEX
NextFlex Director of Technology Jason Marsh and Flex Senior Director Anwar Mohammed to Address Challenges and Solutions for Large-Scale Manufacture of Wearable Electronics
San Jose, Calif.- NextFlex®, America’s Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE) Manufacturing Institute, today announced that its director of technology, Jason Marsh, and Dr. Anwar Mohammed, senior director of the Advanced Engineering Group at Flex, Inc. will deliver the joint keynote at 2017FLEX. This prestigious annual conference for technologists in the flexible electronics industry will be held June 19-22 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Monterey, California.
Titled “Flexible and Stretchable Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing for Wearables: Challenges and Solutions,” the keynote is set for Tuesday, June 20, at 8:45 A.M. Dr. Mohammed will describe the most critical manufacturing challenges for wearable electronics applications: materials technology, deposition and printing, water ingress, interconnect technology, printed electronics, power supplies, and lack of standards, particularly for reliability. Then, together they will touch on potential solutions currently being developed, including the use of nanomaterials, low-temperature soldering, stretchable conductors, printable batteries, and water-resistant coatings.
Mr. Marsh will share how industry needs shape the Institute’s technology roadmaps, which, in turn, drive the project calls issued by NextFlex. He will present on the results to date from several of the 24 projects selected for funding from Project Calls 1.0 and 2.0, particularly those that represent solutions to the challenges discussed earlier in the talk. Finally, he will report on lessons learned in terms of process and capability gaps – a key focus of the current Project Call 3.0, which opened on May 31. The talk will conclude with joint comments on the benefits realized from industry, government, and academia project collaboration.
A closer look at this exciting keynote and the topics covered.
As NextFlex director of technology, Mr. Marsh is responsible for setting the Institute’s technical direction, including managing Technical Council activities. Previously, he worked in Japan, India, Germany, Mexico, Malaysia, and China, where he lived between 2003 and 2008, establishing greenfield factories for Kyocera. As vice president at Insulectro, Mr. Marsh focused on new materials and supply-chain strategies for the printed circuit board and flexible hybrid electronics industries, focusing on high-reliability applications. Mr. Marsh studied materials science and robotics at Stanford University, and worked on early versions of 3D printing using ceramics and metals.
Dr. Mohammed is a senior director within the Advanced Engineering Group of Flex, an international manufacturing company with annual revenue of more than $20 billion. With more than 20 years of active and prominent involvement in the microelectronics manufacturing technology space, he is an acknowledged industry leader in developing advanced technologies for wearable technology and stretchable electronics. Furthermore, Mohammed holds more than 40 IP patents, was honored earlier this year as a NextFlex Fellow, and has been a Fellow of the International Microelectronics and Packaging Society since 2011.
About Flexible Hybrid Electronics
FHE gives everyday products the power of silicon ICs by combining them with new and unique printing processes and new materials. The result: lightweight, low-cost, flexible, conformable, stretchable, and highly efficient smart products with innumerable uses for consumer, commercial, and military applications.
About NextFlex
NextFlex®, America’s Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Institute, is a leading force in the Manufacturing USA network. Formed through a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and FlexTech Alliance, NextFlex is a consortium of companies, academic institutions, non-profits, and state, local, and federal governments with a shared goal of advancing U.S. manufacturing of FHE. Since its formation in 2015, NextFlex’s elite team of thought leaders, educators, problem solvers, and manufacturers have come together to collectively facilitate innovation, narrow the manufacturing workforce gap, and promote sustainable manufacturing ecosystems. For more information, follow NextFlex on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
About Flex
Flex is the Sketch-to-Scale™ solutions provider that designs and builds Intelligent Products for a Connected World™. With approximately 200,000 professionals across 30 countries, Flex provides innovative design, engineering, manufacturing, real-time supply chain insight, and logistics services to companies of all sizes in various industries and end-markets. For more information, visit flex.com or follow Flex on Twitter @flexintl. Flex – Live Smarter™.