Date announced: January 2015
Focus region(s): Merrimack Valley/Route 3 Corridor
Project partners: UMass-Lowell, Raytheon (Waltham); Rogers Corporation (Burlington); Triton Systems (Chelmsford); Creative Materials (Ayer); BAE Systems (Nashua, NH); SI2 Technologies (Billerica); FLEXcon, Inc., (Spencer); Microchem (Westborough).
In January 2015, Governor Baker joined MassTech for the announcement of a $4 million dollar grant to UMass Lowell’s Printed Electronics Research Collaborative (PERC) to support the creation of a facility to accelerate the development of new printed electronics technologies.
The award will help support and partially fund the build out of the Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center (ETIC) and will contribute to the purchase of specialized shared access equipment such as high resolution aerosol jet printers, functional ink characterization equipment, electromagnetic and power characterization equipment, and adaptable roll-to-roll equipment. The award to the PERC project will result in at least $20 million in investment from outside partners, helping spur innovation in an emerging field that has the potential to become a $70+ billion dollar global market over the coming decade, according to industry analysts.
Since the award, the PERC team grew by more than three-fold and included a visiting Fulbright faculty member as well as 22 students (5 doctoral students, 4 master’s students, 13 seniors completing their Capstone project). Researchers based at PERC received the Academic R&D award at the IDTechEx Conference for their ferroelectric ink and presented at eight regional, national, and global forums including the Keynote address at the SGIA Printed Electronics Symposium.