NEW YORK -- Global printed circuit board production will grow 6% year-over-year in 2011, driven by smartphones, tablet and notebook PCs, GPS devices, and TVs, a leading researcher forecasts. Read more ...

ST. LOUIS -- The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted Viasystems a patent for a thermal management solution for printed circuit boards. Read more ...

WASHINGTON – The National Institute of Standards and Technology today said it would provide more than $22 million in funding for nine research projects targeting innovative manufacturing technologies.

The awards will be matched by other funding sources and are expected to result in an estimated $46 million in new advanced manufacturing research over the next three years.

Among the recipients are Kent Displays, Sinmat and Polyera Corp.

Kent Displays proposes to develop a suite of processes for high-volume production of flexible, low-power displays. If successful, the project will result in the first US facility for commercial-scale manufacturing of high-res digital displays of any type, the firm says.

The displays will be made from thin flexible plastic films. Kent Displays plans to introduce its low-power, high-res Reflex displays for use on credit cards; as electronic paper for broad-scale applications, such as advertising; in low-cost writing tablets, and for other mass-market offerings.

The firm aims to increase production capabilities and lower costs for Reflex flexible displays by developing seven new manufacturing processes.

Sinmat plans to develop commercial-scale methods for making super hard, low-defect substrate materials and engineering the surfaces of these platforms to eliminate roughness and optimize properties for particular applications.

Sinmat’s surface-engineered super hard substrates are also designed to reduce defect density and enhance light reflection.

Success could pave the way for silicon-on-diamond substrates to meet the need to rapidly dissipate heat on ICs, the firm says.

The company proposes to refine and scale up its chemical mechanical polishing techniques for engineering the surfaces of gallium nitride, silicon carbide, diamond, and other extremely hard materials.

Polyera said it has developed semiconductor materials with the potential to reach 10% power-conversation efficiencies, the level needed to enable solar modules competitive with other technologies on a cost-per-watt basis.

The firm proposes to develop synthetic methods to enable large-scale manufacturing of these materials.

The project will develop and evaluate synthetic routes for making the fundamental building block. It also will examine the potential of a new polymerization method to better control the photoactive layer polymer architecture at the nanoscale.

Polyera will work with third parties to scale-up the process first to pilot levels and then to commercial-scale volumes.