CPI Honoured for the Newly Opened Newton Aycliffe Facility

CPI won an award for Technical Development Manufacturing by the judges of the awards, Dr Graham Anderson from BEKO, Dr Kiarash Vakhshouri from Google and Dr Adeline Koay from Diageo. The awards were presented by Dr Richard Collins of IDTechEx.

The multi-component roll to roll electronic assembly line at the CPI provides electronics assembly capability for large area and flexible electronic assemblies which use a wide range of components. The system allows for flexible ICs, silicon die from wafer and conventional components to be assembled on continuous rolls of flexible substrates. It includes alternatives approaches to component attach including thermodes and surface mount oven which allows isotropic and anisotropic adhesives and pastes to be used for the component attach. Component encapsulation and automatic optical inspection provide for reliable assembly of circuits which can be used in a wised range of applications.

One of the judges reported, ​“From the point of view as an end user, one of the major issues with new technologies is the route to manufacture. Innovative centres like CPI can be an important part of this and the line that they are demonstrating here is very impressive and I hope it will be used to bridge the gap between research and manufacturing.

The printable electronics centre is supporting a number of developments, including self- monitoring packaging capable of tracking sensitive medicines in the healthcare sector. Expected to be worth up to £10.8 trillion a year by 2025, the Internet of Things connects devices via the internet, allowing them to send and receive data, and is seen as an integral platform in helping electronics companies develop new business models.