CEA-Leti announced today that researchers Dominique Vicard and Jean Brun received the Avantex Innovation Prize for the use of the E-Thread technology in textiles.

The award was presented June 10 during the award ceremony at the opening of the Techtextil and Avantex Symposia in Frankfurt, Germany.

According to Avantex, the “innovation awards go to outstanding achievements in research, new materials, products, technologies and applications.”

E-Thread is a microelectronic packaging technology developed by Leti that allows for a direct connection of a chip to a set of two conductors, which can provide the functions of antenna, power and/or data bus. This allows a 10x improvement in size, assembly time and reliability compared to classic microelectronic packaging. The E-Thread assembly can then be incorporated inside a yarn and used by the textile and plastic industries using standard production tools. Electronics such as LEDs, RFIDs or sensors can then be truly integrated in materials and objects.

In choosing this technology for the innovation award, the Avantex jury said “electronics integrated in textiles during the textile processing and not simply by adding the components in a last step will be a significant step forward.” The jury also said the prize was awarded to “this development, as it shows that research and development is also for the textile industry of vital importance and that it can lead to the creation of new companies.”

E-Thread is one of the technologies used within the European FP7 PASTA project (Platform for Advanced Smart Textile Application), and is the key technology asset of the Primo1D startup company, that will be created by Leti during the second half of 2013.

Vicard previously won a 40,000-euro startup award from OSEO, the French organization committed to supporting entrepreneurship, for proposing embedding electronic functions in textile yarns using the E-Thread technology.

Samples of E-Thread will be on display during the symposia, Hall 3.1, stand B11.