Designing wearable systems-on-polymer using flexible hybrid electronics

Flexible electronics have the potential to revolutionize the way humans interact, communicate, and control electronic devices. Cost and weight advantages combined with physical flexibility open a wide range of application areas, includingwearable electronics, medical devices, and internet of things (IoT). However, performance and capabilities offered by flexible electronics technology are severely limited, and far lower than traditional rigid systems-on-chip (SoC) used today. Emerging flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) target this problem by integrating traditional rigid ICs and printed electronics on a flexible substrate, such as polymer. FHE can be used to coalesce rigid and flexible resources judiciously to drive the next big leap forward in the form factor design, similar to the shift from desktop and laptop computers to hand-held devices. This chapter compares the FHE systems-on-polymer (SoPs) with traditional SoCs and introduces the physical flexibility as a new dimension in the design space. It overviews the major requirements of flexibility-aware design methodologies and tools tailored for FHE. Finally, it discusses near- and longterm application areas and relevant challenges.