STA Seeks Connector Development Partners

Sep 24, 2024

STA’s primary mission is to promote development of a voluntary industry standard for smart textiles, because we believe this is essential to ensure development of interoperable electronics and textile components, assure end-users of quality compliance and mature the smart textile supply chain.

We are seeking partners for an exciting new project, with the aim to develop a universal connector that will form the basis for a future industry standard for power supply and data communication in e-textiles, together with a standardized labelling system for e-textile products.

The project will include partners from across the entire e-textiles supply chain, not only amongst textile and electronics manufacturers, but also developing automated solutions for high-volume connector mounting, product disassembly and recycling. We are already well-advanced in putting together a consortium for this project, aiming to submit a proposal under the Eureka programme’s Xecs Call 4.

We are currently seeking partners with the following profiles:

Smart textile manufacturer: Specifically, an end-user/manufacturer developing wearable developing wearable applications within the sports or medical sectors utilizing the developed connector. · Evaluation and test of developed solution	TASKS: – Contribute to definition of connector requirements. – Contribute to development of a connection and mounting process that matches product needs
Connector manufacturer:	TASKS – Development of the mechanical design for the connector – Development of scalable manufacturing and mounting processes for the universal connector (in collaboration with a textile machine manufacturer & partner working on bonding layers to ensure compatibility with a range of textile materials with varying properties)
Chip manufacturer:	TASKS: – Chip design – Chip manufacture and test
Electronics recycling company:	TASKS: – Define and develop processes for recycling /reuse of electronic components from e-textile products (in collaboration with a textile recycling company)