Key development in semiconductor technology provides breakthrough for electronic packaging

Semiconductor Research Corporation & Stanford Develop Unique Combination of Elements for Thermal Nanotape That Transforms Packaging Applications
Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world’s leading university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, and researchers from Stanford University have developed a novel combination of elements that yields a unique nanostructure material for packaging. This advance should allow longer life for semiconductor devices while costing less than current state-of-the-art materials. In addition to chip manufacturers, several other industries could also gain greater product efficiencies from related thermal energy management technology.
For semiconductors, the improvement will come in the form of packaging for devices. Presently, manufacturers must rely on tiny pins or thick solder to bond sections of the semiconductor in order for the device to perform. However, current solder materials tend to degrade and fail due to heat and mechanical stress. In order to continue the scaling of integrated circuits, SRC and Stanford have researched materials that provide a high thermal connectivity — comparable to copper — with the flexible compliance of foam. The answer has been created through a nanostructured thermal tape that conducts heat like a metal while allowing the neighboring materials to expand and contract with temperature changes (metals are too stiff to allow this). This ability to reduce chip temperatures while remaining compliant is a key breakthrough for electronic packaging.

Checkout the full story @ Nanowerk News: www.nanowerk.com

You can read more Design Cognition related packaging stories in Technology

Chris Penfold

Want to know more about injection moulding? Increase your skills on our 1 day course

If you are involved in the design or development of injection moulded thermoplastic parts, whether packaging, delivery systems or devices, and want to save huge amounts of time, money & hassle, this 1 day course is for you – especially if you would like to be able to:

- Understand the key terms and phrases associated with injection moulding machines, the process and a basic multi cavity hot runner mould tool configuration.

- Have the knowledge and confidence to interact on an even level with suppliers when specifying, sourcing and managing a plastics moulding, tooling project through to final acceptance.

- Recognise common moulding faults and implement a course of remedial action quickly.

- Create a bespoke mould tool specification documents for your own components. This will enable you to not only understand your current suppliers documentation, but also compare alternative suppliers on a like-for-like basis.

There is an EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT, but HURRY, the discount ends Friday 24th December 2010.

To find out more, check out: Packaging Training Courses – More Information

or email Training@DesignCognition.Com

Alternatively just give us a call on +44 (0) 115 8461914

Look forward to seeing you there!

Professor Streckl & Duk Young Kim's research takes us ever-nearer to moving pictures on packaging

A breakthrough in a University of Cincinnati engineering lab that could clear the way for a low-cost, even disposable, e-reader is gaining considerable attention and this technology could have ‘far-reaching’ implications and provide all sorts of opportunities in the field of packaging, with the ability to ‘print’ moving pictures (of a quality seen on glass) onto flexible packaging.

Electrical Engineering Professor Andrew Steckl, together with UC doctoral student Duk Young Kim, have researched into an affordable, yet high-performance, paper-based display technology which has demonstrated that paper could be used as a flexible host material for an ‘electrowetting’ device. Electrowetting (EW) involves applying an electric field to coloured droplets within a display in order to reveal content such as type, photographs and video.

Steckl’s discovery that paper could be used as the host material has far-reaching implications considering other popular e-readers on the market such as the Kindle and iPad rely on complex circuitry printed over a rigid glass substrate. Steckl says: “It is pretty exciting. With the right paper, the right process and the right device fabrication technique, you can get results that are as good as you would get on glass, and our results are good enough for a video-style e-reader.”

He imagines a future device that is “rollable, feels like paper yet delivers books, news and even high-resolution color video in bright-light conditions” – perfect for packaging applications (in my opinion)! If you combine this with the Sony technology (Rollable OTFT screen) that we wrote about recently, the packaging possibilities are endless!

Read more about this type of technology in our ‘Technology’ folder.

You can read the full Steckl article at www.nanowerk.com

Chris Penfold

Brazil’s law requiring serialisation for pharmaceuticals gains pace

At Design Cognition we believe that the following legislation will have a major impact on any pharmaceutical company manufacturing and/or selling medicinal products in Brazil. In a major drive to eliminate counterfeited medicinal products; unique labels are to be supplied by the Brazilian Government’s ‘National Mint’ for medicines registered with the Brazilian Authorities.

All medicines will be required to have labels applied to their packaging before January 15th 2012. It will be illegal to sell products without these labels in place. Pharmacies throughout Brazil will have label readers installed to verify the labels on the products in time for this deadline.

This initiative is far more controlled and constraining than other anti-counterfeit measures put in place by Governments in other country, for example in France, where 2D data matrix codes are to be incorporated on all medicines by the end of this year.

The  introduction of this legislation, although delayed from June, has taken a ‘new turn’ recently, as emphasised in September by Peter Schmitt of Montesino Associates, who provided an update on the impending law in the live Webcast, “Update: Brazil Law 11.903—An “Emerging” Regulation for Traceability & Serialization.”

ANVISA is the Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency and was established in 1999. The law and the original ANVISA guidelines detailed a program of serialized code in 2-D Data Matrix format on a security label printed by the national mint that was to be rolled out in June 2010. Subsequent ANVISA announcements delayed the timeline, but in November, ANVISA indicated that it will require all pharmaceuticals sold in Brazil to comply with its program by January 2012.

On November 3, ANVISA posted a Normative Instruction to the Daily Journal (Brazil’s equivalent to the United States’s Federal Register) detailing its decision to move forward with the self-adhesive security labels supplied by the Brazilian Mint (known by its Portuguese initials: CMB-Casa da Moeda). According to Schmitt’s translation, ANVISA states in the Instruction that “the self-adhesive labels shall contain an individual, unique, and non-repetitive identifier, called the IUM (Brazilian Initials for Unique Drug Identifier), printed in legible characters, and consisting of a two dimensional bar code. . . . The other specifications of self-adhesive labels are the responsibility of the Mint of Brazil and will be published by that entity.”

The self-adhesive labels, often called “Safety Labels” or “Stamps” by ANVISA, “will be supplied by the CMB to each company with drug registration in Brazil, regularized with ANVISA.”

The labels will feature an “invisible marker” for authentication that can only be recognized by the special readers. Measuring 19 × 25 mm, the labels will feature “micro fibers and coloured beads visible only under ultraviolet light” along with “micro cuttings to protect against attempted tampering,” Schmitt reports.

Over the next seven months, ANVISA will be supplying readers to pharmacies at no cost to them, which will enable them to authenticate the labels.

“Data from the security labels will be connected via the IUM and Brazil’s Electronic Invoice system and will be the responsibility of the Treasury Secretary of Brazil,” Schmitt explains.

“Pharmaceutical companies have 60 days to enroll in the program (not to implement) by signing a contract with the CMB,” Schmitt adds. “Shipment of the labels to the pharmaceutical company must begin within 60 days after the contract has been signed.”

Companies will have six months to start using the label for products produced in Brazil and 12 months for products imported into Brazil, Schmitt reports. After January 15, 2012, all pharmaceutical products sold in Brazil are required to have the safety label on their packaging.

Watch this space for further updates. You can read other pharmaceutical & healthcare-based packaging articles by following this link to Design Cognition Pharmaceutical Posts

Or follow this one to read the full Brazilian serialisation PMPNews article

Chris  Penfold

Great to see that this Roses pack won the Starpack Gold Environment Award.  The judges said

 “This entry is a winner because the design provides a 45% packaging weight reduction, allows for a more cost effective supply chain and has been developed to provide the strength and stability provided by a tin, but in a carton” 

Personally I really like this pack and indeed wrote about it last November  (Cadbury replaces Roses tin with cardboard box) when it was first launched in Tesco’s. 

It’s a shame, but I heard just a few weeks ago that this pack was being withdrawn.  It appeared to have everything going for it, so why is it being withdrawn? Comments at the time hinted that although consumers talk about wanting to be green the reality was a little different – I’m not sure I really agree with that.

Outside of the packaging industry who knew about the pack or its reasons for being there?  I certainly didn’t see any adverts or publicity for it.  I think Cadbury’s really missed a trick here, this could have been a great opportunity to engage with younger consumers.

A real missed opportunity!

Media Enhanced Packaging Solutions - 'raise the game'

The US-based Digimarc Corporation has recently been working very closely with New Jersey-based Catalent Pharma Solutions, a leading provider of innovative packaging solutions to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and consumer healthcare industries to take interactive pharmaceutical packaging to the ‘next level’. It has licensed its mobile visual search software that, together with it’s leading-edge Chroma watermark printing technology, will allow Catalent to deliver new Media Enhanced Packaging solutions to its clients worldwide that will instantly connect consumers to a range of network services from printed packaging, inserts, and labels using smart phones and other digital devices.

Digimarc’s mobile software enables the phone’s camera to “see” digital data that has been embedded into all forms of printed materials, including advertisements, editorial content, brochures, posters, product packaging, labels and more. Unlike 2D barcodes or QR codes, the digital codes do not take up precious space on packages, and they are imperceptible to human senses, but can easily be detected by computers, networks, and today’s most popular smart phones. So they not only open up all sorts of possibilities for more advanced covert counterfeiting measures to be taken, but also for additional patient and Healthcare Practitioner (HCP) information, advice and interaction.

You can read a more information at www.digimarc.com and www.catalent.com

We are really passionate about helping our clients identify and implement new and exciting technologies so why not give us a call now and see how we can help you – +44(0)115 8461914

You can find other related Design Cognition articles on ‘Intelligent’ packaging & technology here:

Design Cognition Technology Insights & News

Chris Penfold

Design Cognition are pleased to announce that we have added a new course to our already popular training program.

In today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, effective branding is essential. Our branding/shelf impact course will give hints, tips and pointers on how to make your product stand out on shelf through effective packaging. It will explain how to transform your good brand into a GREAT brand and help take your products to the ‘next level’.

For more information on this or other training courses we are running please visit Design Cognition Training

Here’s how ‘Eco Warrior’ and ‘Gaia Capitalist’ David de Rothschild made his catamaran ‘Plastiki’ out of recycled PET bottle packaging -- turning waste into resource and into an (almost) completely recyclable boat, that he then sailed from San Francisco to Sydney.

You can read the related article I wrote earlier today here: Sailing through the Plastiki soup in search of Paradise

Chris Penfold

Plastiki - David de Rothschild's yacht made of recycled PET bottles

As we have discussed in previous posts, there is a huge and ever-increasing mountain of rubbish growing in the middle of the Pacific, like a giant festering ’soup’, much of which consists of plastic packaging waste. This has had a massive knock-on affect in the  form of polluted beaches on islands throughout the South Pacific. See our previous article: Great Pacific Garbage Patch article

David de Rothschild is a man on a mission. The offspring of the wealthy banking family, he is one of a new breed of environmental crusaders and entrepreneurs that some are calling ‘Gaia capitalists’. ‘Gaia’ in mythology was the primal Greek goddess of the Earth and aptly a ‘gyre’ in oceanography is any large system of rotating ocean currents (source: Wikipedia).

To highlight the Pacific issue and raise it’s profile in mainstream media, De Rothschild decided to use his family’s high profile  (& money) to build a yacht made entirely of recycled plastic bottle packaging, which he named ‘Plastiki’ (making reference and tribute to the late Thor Heyerdahl’s papyrus Kon-tiki raft which crossed the Pacific back in 1947). Over a four month period he sailed this 60ft catamaran from San Francisco to Sydney, where he landed last week. But his exploits are no shallow ploy to fill aimless days with fun and adventure.

De Rothschild and his ‘Gaia’ friends are driven by a combination of social conscience and economic pragmatism, seeking a ‘paradigm shift’ in the way we live and desecrate our planet. They espouse a new form of capitalism that factors in the environment and social wellbeing as a cost. It considers protecting the environment not only as a moral issue but as a set of design challenges to correct inefficiencies that make the capitalist system unsustainable. Waste, for example, is considered the result of inadequate thinking. If you are smarter about it, and create products that work properly, then you shouldn’t have to throw anything away at the end – should you? The group include Chad Hurley (33) who with his co-founder, sold YouTube to Google for $1.6Bn and has since ploughed some of his fortune into the Green Products Innovation Institute and Jeffrey Skoll, worth $2.4Bn, who wrote the business plan for eBay and has set up the Skoll Foundation to encourage ’social entrepreneurs’ to play a greater role in developing a better world (source: The  Sunday Times).

These are ‘game changers’, who see solutions where others see problems – a new entrepreneurial revolution – one of collaboration something that de Rothschild calls ‘Planet 2.0′. So I feel that we will be hearing a lot more from this ‘band of brothers’ in the future. They mean to ‘rattle some cages’, get us all to think differently and make a real impact by influencing things at ‘the top’. They have a point! Can we really carry on the way we are? For a really ’sustainable future’, for our children and their children’s sakes, things have to change a lot quicker.What do you think?

Chris Penfold

There's no such thing as a free launch

The trouble with television programmes like High Street Dreams and Dragons Den, is that they only provide a
‘snapshot/soundbite’ of branding and the product development process, making it all appear oh-so-easy to the average ‘personon the street’. In reality, it’s a complicated process and there are a number of steps involved that should be considered before even thinking about approaching a branding or design agency and spending ‘hard-earned’ cash.
At Design Cognition we routinely get approached by all manner of entrepreneurs and small business owners who have very limited experience of branding and New Product Development (NPD). So we thought that we ought to provide some ‘pointers’ for those of you new to this arena, to get you to ‘stop and think’ and focus on what it is you are actually trying to achieve! It’s not in your interests or ours to develop products that have a high probability of failure.

So here are some fundamental questions to ask yourself, before you even think about branding & packaging:

read more »