11. Printed Flexible Hybrid Electronics

Flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) are heterogeneous electronics embodying both conventional silicon electronics and printed electronics, which is advantageous compared to conventional silicon electronics and the emerging printed electronics—FHE features better mechanical flexibility/conformability and lower cost compared to conventional silicon electronics, and higher performance compared to printed electronics. While silicon ICs thrive at low-power high-performance computing, creating flexible and large-area electronics using silicon remains a challenge. On the other hand, flexible and printed electronics use intrinsically flexible materials and printing techniques to manufacture compliant and large-area electronics. Nonetheless, flexible electronics are not as efficient as silicon ICs for computation and signal communication. Flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) leverage the strengths of these two dissimilar technologies. They use flexible and printed electronics where flexibility and scalability are required, i.e., for sensing and actuating, and silicon ICs for computation and communication purposes. Combining flexible electronics and silicon ICs yields a very powerful and versatile technology with a vast range of applications. This chapter will provide a brief review about the fundamental building blocks of an FHE system, printable materials and circuits, thinned silicon ICs, emerging applications, current challenges, and future trends related to FHE.