Conductive Textiles

Contact Person: Ivo Locher

Project Start: Autumn 2001

End: February 2006

Disseration No. 16467

Objectives

Status to date

Currently, we focus on fabrics with embedded copper wires. Each copper wire itself is coated with an insulation varnish. We have developed methods to interconnect these copper wires along with a packaging process, which enables electrical circuits on textiles resulting in a System-on-Textile (SoT). SoT necessitates special design constraints for placement and routing.

Focus of our investigation is the electrical performance of textile interconnect and transmission lines. Earlier, we developed measurement processes in order to determine the transmission line characteristics of such textiles. Based on the measurement results, we designed simulation models for different wire configurations. Their characteristic impedance can be adjusted using different line configuration and cross-talk can be minimized with introduction of additional ground lines.

Publications

• Technologies for System-on-Textile Integration, I. Locher, Dissertation ETH No. 16467, ETH Zurich, Feb. 2006.
  
• Temperature Profile Estimation with Smart Textiles, I. Locher, T. Kirstein and G. Tröster, Proc. 1st International Scientific Conference Ambience 05, Tampere, Finland, Sept. 19-20, 2005. PDF BIB
  
• Routing Methods Adapted to e-Textiles, I. Locher, T. Kirstein and G. Tröster, Proc. 37th International Symposium on Microelectronics (IMAPS 2004), Long Beach CA, Nov. 14-18, 2004. PDF BIB
  
• Packaging-Technologien für textile Substrate, I. Locher, T. Kirstein und G. Tröster, DVS/GMM-Tagung - Aufbau- und Fertigungstechnik, Proceedings, Fellbach, Deutschland, Feb. 2004, pp. 477-482. PDF BIB
  
• Textiles for Data Transmission, I. Locher, T. Kirstein and G. Tröster, ISWC 2003, Poster, White Plains, Oct. 21-23, 2003. PDF
  
• Electrical Characterization of Textile Transmission Lines, D. Cottet, J. Grzyb, T. Kirstein and G. Tröster, IEEE Transactions on Advanced Packaging, Vol. 26, No. 2, May 2003, pp. 182-190.
• Electronic Textiles, I. Locher, T. Kirstein and G. Tröster, ICEWES 2002, Proc. ICEWES Conference, Cottbus, Germany, Dec. 10-11 2002. PDF
  
• Textiles for Signal Transmission in Wearables, T. Kirstein, D. Cottet, J. Grzyb and G. Tröster, MAMSET 2002, Proceedings Workshop on Modeling, Analysis and Middleware Support for Electronic Textiles, San Jose, CA, 6. October, 2002, pp. 9-14. PDF
  
• Textiles for Wearable Computing Systems, T. Kirstein, J. Bonan, D. Cottet and G. Tröster. Hightex, Proceedings, Saint-Hyacinthe, Canada, April 23, 2002. PDF