Fabric electronics, concept or reality?

Citation

Stylios, G.K. (2007), "Fabric electronics, concept or reality?", International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, Vol. 19 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijcst.2007.05819aaa.001

Fabric electronics, concept or reality?

Provocative thinking into the future has made in the past breakthroughs in textiles and clothing. From these pages I like to share the thoughts and consider the implications of what might be possible if electronic circuitry can be made out of fabric. And I am not talking about pushing the textile industry beyond boundaries once again, but rather revolutionising the way we view, accept and use electronics. How for instance we can carry our gadgetry with us, without thinking, because it will be in our clothes, not attached as in wearable electronics but the fabric itself to become the PCB necessary for delivering the functions of a PDA, mobile phone, GPS, etc. This is what I would like to call fabric electronics.

I see two stages of development for achieving this, the first, in the not too distant future, is to make fabric-based PCB's and attach large-scale integrated circuits, micro sensors, etc. in a flexible manner, and in the longer term the use of organic circuitry/sensors as part of the textile design structure and components themselves. Conductive, semi-conductive coatings and yarns are important in making this possible and over the past years there have been significant advances in this area. The problem of soldering electronic micro components is being sorted out by devising metallisation of polymer substrates such as polyimide which can resist high-temperatures during soldering. It is the withstanding of stresses and strains at micro component joining imposed during the normal wear of fabrics that will challenge the future fortunes of the textile industry, in terms of fabric electronics. To that effect patterned conductive coatings have been tried to achieve PCB type of effects but yet not adequately. Other types have or are being investigated such as embroidery and jacquard weaving, spacer fabrics, etc. but yet with no apparent success.

One difficulty that a fabric electronic has is the lack of signal integrity due to electromagnetic interference amongst adjacent yarns. In conventional electronics coaxial copper threads are being used to eliminate this problem, but this is difficult if the textile nature of pliability, handle and texture are to be preserved.

Although a small number of research programmes are emerging in this area and some companies are seriously thinking the implications of this possibility fabric electronics is still in the minds of very few and as an area, probably yet non-existent or in its infancy, unlike plastic electronics which is a very well defined discipline and one of the newer areas of R&D. We therefore propose the use of fabric electronic as a generic term to those researching or starting to research in this area and we invite them to submit their findings in papers for the forthcoming issues of IJCST.

Relating to fabric electronics but not exclusively, this year IJCST invites you also to submit papers of original new finding in the general area of SMART TEXTILES AND CLOTHING, which will be part of a special journal issue in 2007. The deadline for abstracts is set as the 31 January 2007. For more information please contact the editor: g.stylios@hw.ac.uk

The 19th volume will continue with high quality technical original manuscripts written from original research findings, refereed blindly by at least two experts in the field and cited widely within the community through the:

• •

  ISI Alerting Service

• •

  ISI Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) including web of science

• •

  Materials Science Citation (MSCI)

• •

  World Textile Abstracts

• •

  Textile Technology Index (EBSCO)

• •

  INSPEC

• •

  SCIMA

• •

  SCOPUS

• •

  Zetoc

• •

  Current Abstracts (EBSCO).

I like to take this opportunity and express greetings from the editor, the publisher and the editorial team to all our subscribers, readers and authors, and good wishes for another productive, rewarding and exciting volume of IJCST, now in its 19th year of publishing.

George K. StyliosEditor-in-Chief