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Things that think and the communication of people with such things in his environment critically depend on contactless communication technologies. RF communication devices and protocols have been developed in the past and exist today, yet in their present form they cannot and will never be used on a large scale to allow communication with everyday objects. The fundamental reason for this is the cost of the silicon technology employed to realize it. Even in its most optimistic projection, this cost remains at least one order of magnitude higher than the cost of a technology that has been proven to be truly ubiquitously applicable, such as a barcode. Therefore, a new generation of devices is required to enable ambient intelligence at the right cost point in order to be truly applicable everywhere and anywhere. The objective of PolyApply is to lay the foundations of a scalable and ubiquitously applicable communication technology. The boundary condition is the cost of the microsystem, combining basic RF communication with sensor functions. The key to achieving a fundamentally different cost point than what will be reachable in the future with the evolution of the existing technologies (e.g. CMOS), is to resolutely move to adisruptive new manufacturing technology: going from batch processing to in-line manufacturing technology. The semiconductor system envisaged to this end is based on polymers. The scalable aspect refers to the fact that PolyApply does not plan to propose a solution for a certain generation of RF communication devices useful at one point in time, but rather intends to develop generic technologies with a meaningful impact in the mid- and long term. In other words, the developed technologies will lead to an extendable family of products, ranging from "simple" RF tags at ultra-low cost to RF communication devices with complex functionality such as integrated re-writable memory, sensory inputs, display, etc

The production and application of pre-treated and pre-coated aluminum products is widely diffused and forms a consistent part of the industrial activities. Aluminum surfaces are for instance protected by a layer of aluminum oxide obtained by controlled electrochemical oxidation. The resulting sealed is mostly an ideal barrier towards the environment. However, the brittle nature of the layer is susceptible towards defects and crack formation which rise to corrosion.The objectives of the proposed research are to develop and evaluate a heavy metal-free coating layer for the protection of aluminum meeting the following requirements; better corrosion protective coating layer, flexible, wear resistant coating layer, low permeability towards corrosive gases, a positively environmental effect; no emission of metal such as Cr. to the environment.

In vacuum coating of plastic films, the major section of roll-to-roll vacuum web coating, about 15 billions of square meters per year are presently coated world wide, with a continuous, long-term growth over the last decades. In this area, packaging films today represent about 2/3 of the overall volume. The rest is covered by decorative and technical applications like capacitors. In packaging, the still most important coating material is thermally evaporated aluminium. In addition, a new market perspective is seen in transparent barrier layers on the basis of oxides from silicon and aluminium, today mainly made in Japan. In Europe, the break-through has not been achieved for this kind of layers and mainly test scale coating capacities are in operation. A lot of challenges and a strong need for technical innovations arise for this sector, mainly driven by the increasing functional demands that are caused by the trend to substitute heavy, but virtually impermeable packaging systems, made from metal and glass, by lightweight and flexible ones, made from film laminates: - To achieve better barrier properties of flexible packaging against the permeation of gases, of water vapour and of flavour substances, for flexible packaging both with barriers from metallic and transparent oxide layers, produced by vacuum coating, - and to allow the use of abundant, less expensive and better recoverable substrate materials like polyolefin's, thereby maintaining superior barrier properties. For those subjects, the basic technical processes have already been tested on the separate steps by different companies, but to achieve the necessary combination of these on the industrial level, the problems in technology transfer are immense. At present, there is a high uncertainty for obtaining a good final result of the process chain and large variations in properties may be observed on most products even in cases where the starting materials are exactly the same. The same is valid for the emerging areas - outside capacitor applications - where vacuum coated layers are used in technical applications. These areas, although characterised by a high added value, show an even higher variety of technical requirements compared to packaging, thus leading to a varying performance of the products available for the related applications. It is the main goal of the project to coordinate the industrial R&D activities ongoing in different companies and to achieve a better hand shake between industrial partners active along the process line with respect to the following issues: - Film production, pre-treatment, vacuum coating and final lamination of: - polyolefin films, especially polypropylene, and of; - other selected polymer films with metallic and transparent barrier layers, for packaging applications. Targets are to enhance the basis of knowledge for all partners and to achieve substantial improvements in the quality of products by simultaneous introduction of process innovations into the whole production chain. Investigation of technical applications outside capacitors, e.g. medical, optical, wearresistance and security applications with their specific requirements toenlarge the knowledge basis also there with respect to process parameters andtheir effects on product performance. - The techniques of measurement andtesting, namely of barrier properties, especially permeability for oxygen, of water vapour and of flavour substances, and of mechanical properties, especially adhesion, for both areas also in dependence on mechanical loadstypical for packaging processes. There is also an important element of prenormative research: To develop industrial testing standards for vacuum coated layers on thin polymer films and, if possible, to introduce themfurther into international standardisation panels.

Directed High Rate Evaporation of Metallic and Transparent Materials onto Polymer Films Directed Evaporation Main target is to develop a new, relatively simple evaporation technology for vacuum coating, based on specifically shaped radiation - heated porous sources with high directional characteristics, . compatible with various vacuum coating technologies, having significantly longer lifetimes than present boat evaporators, retrofittable into available equipment, for operation of present metallization coating processes at Iower cost and . for specific new processes without the high investment required e.g. for electron - gun evaporation sources, thus helping SME's to operate their existing equipment in a competitive way and to enter into new product fields. This technique is to be developed for 3 different kinds of evaporation coating materials: * Meltable, low boiling point metals, (such as Al, Cu) * Subliming metals (such as Cr) * Dielectrics, mainly oxides. The main future application field for this technology and coating materials will be roll-to-roll large area vacuum coating of films, especially for: * Packaqing films with evaporated barrier layers (metallic or transparent) * Decorative films * Films for technical applications, e.g. capacitor films, or films for safety applications. In this technical area, the following innovations are to be expected: * A better usage of evaporation material, less stray deposition residues, reduced cleaning effort and higher equipment up-time, as main effect. * Evaporation of other metals than Aluminum, e.g. Chromium, without the need for additional equipment for electron beam evaporation or flash evaporation. * Direct evaporation of dielectrics from inexpensive oxide mixtures, e.g. for transparent barrier layers for packaging films. * Position-independent evaporation sources for perpendicular to nearly horizontal directions, allowing for arranqements of several subsequent evaporation sources in substrate transport direction.

Directed High Rate Evaporation of Metallic and Transparent Materials onto Polymer Films Directed Evaporation Main target is to develop a new, relatively simple evaporation technology for vacuum coating, based on specifically shaped radiation - heated porous sources with high directional characteristics, . compatible with various vacuum coating technologies, having significantly longer lifetimes than present boat evaporators, retrofittable into available equipment, for operation of present metallization coating processes at Iower cost and . for specific new processes without the high investment required e.g. for electron - gun evaporation sources, thus helping SME's to operate their existing equipment in a competitive way and to enter into new product fields. This technique is to be developed for 3 different kinds of evaporation coating materials: * Meltable, low boiling point metals, (such as Al, Cu) * Subliming metals (such as Cr) * Dielectrics, mainly oxides. The main future application field for this technology and coating materials will be roll-to-roll large area vacuum coating of films, especially for: * Packaqing films with evaporated barrier layers (metallic or transparent) * Decorative films * Films for technical applications, e.g. capacitor films, or films for safety applications. In this technical area, the following innovations are to be expected: * A better usage of evaporation material, less stray deposition residues, reduced cleaning effort and higher equipment up-time, as main effect. * Evaporation of other metals than Aluminum, e.g. Chromium, without the need for additional equipment for electron beam evaporation or flash evaporation. * Direct evaporation of dielectrics from inexpensive oxide mixtures, e.g. for transparent barrier layers for packaging films. * Position-independent evaporation sources for perpendicular to nearly horizontal directions, allowing for arranqements of several subsequent evaporation sources in substrate transport direction.