Supercon is a company that received a SBIR Phase II grant for a project entitled: A New Production Method for Ta Fibers for Use in Electrolytic Capacitors with Improved Performance and Packaging Options. Their project is intended to develop a new process for manufacturing tantalum (Ta) metal fibers for use in producing tantalum capacitors, and advance this process to the stage of commercialization. This technology, which has been demonstrated in Phase I, could lead to capacitor products having higher performance and greater volumetric efficiency than any currently available. The use of fibers in place of metal powder allows the production of thin anode bodies leading to improved packing options and component performance. The innovation underlying the technology is bundle drawing of Ta filaments in a copper matrix. A composite consisting of Ta filaments in a copper matrix is drawn is a series of reduction steps until the filaments are less than about 10 microns in diameter. The drawn wire is rolled to produce ribbon-type filaments that are 1 micron or less in thickness. The copper composite matrix is chemically dissolved without attacking the Ta to produce metallic Ta high surface area, ribbon-fibers. The fibers are formed into thin mats, which are sintered to produce porous metal strips from which high surface area capacitor anodes are made. A significant aspect of this approach is that fiber morphology can be varied over a wide of fiber thicknesses unlike powder. This allows the morphology of the fibers to be optimized for the particular voltage rating and use requirements in order to maximize the performance of the capacitor. Commercially, nearly all medical, automotive, military and many consumer electronic devices utilize Ta electrolytic capacitors due to their outstanding performance, reliability and volumetric efficiency. Solid electrolytic capacitors are currently made from Ta metal powder. Several million pounds per year of Ta powder are consumed in manufacturing Ta capacitors for these applications. The trend in electronics is toward high powder components and increased miniaturization. Combined with the need to lower materials and manufacturing costs, these considerations have created an opportunity for new method of producing solid electrolytic capacitors. Fiber metal technology has the potential to both lower manufacturing costs, improve capacitor performance, and improve packaging options, which could enable the development of new product that are either currently very difficult or very expensive to make using current technology base on metal powder. Supercon is a company that received a SBIR Phase I grant for a project entitled: A New Production Method for Ta Fibers for Use in Electrolytic Capacitors with Improved Performance and Packaging Options. Their project is intended to demonstrate a new process for manufacturing valve metal fibers for use in producing capacitors. The technology is applicable to all valve metals used for making solid electrolytic capacitors. If successful, this technology could lead to capacitor products having higher performance and greater volumetric efficiency than are currently available. The use of fibers in place of the standard powder compacts allows the production of thin anode bodies leading to improved packaging options and component performance. The innovation underlying the technology is bundle drawing of valve metal filaments contained in copper matrix. A composite consisting of valve metal filaments in a copper matrix is drawn in series of reduction steps until the filaments are less than 10 microns. The drawn wire is rolled to produce submicron thick ribbon type filaments. The copper composite matrix is chemically dissolved to produce metallic thin fibers. The fibers are formed into thin mats, which are sintered to produce porous metal strips from which high surface area capacitor anodes can be made. A significant aspect of this approach is that fiber morphology can be varied within a wide range of thickness and widths unlike powders. This allows the morphology of the fibers to be optimized in order to maximize the properties of the capacitor. Commercially, nearly all medical, automotive and consumer electronic devices all utilize solid electrolytic capacitors due to their performance, volumetric efficiency, and high reliability. Several million pounds per year of powder are consumed in the manufacture of capacitors for these applications. The trend towards higher power components, and miniaturization, combined with the need to lower materials and manufacturing costs have created an opportunity for new methods of producing solid electrolytic capacitors. Fiber metal technology has the potential to both lower manufacturing costs, improve capacitor performance, and improve packaging options which could lead to new products that are either very difficult or very expensive to make using current methods.

FELIXprinters operates as a three-dimensional (3D) printer manufacturer. It offers professional, industrial three-dimensional (3D) printers, desktop, and large three-dimensional (3D) printers, BIOprinters, and custom three-dimensional (3D) printers. and more. It serves food printing, bioprinting, education, and other sectors. It was founded in 2011 and is based in Utrecht, Netherlands.

OSAI Automation System is a semiconductor machinery manufacturing company. It specializes in automation, electronic machines, semiconductor applications, laser technology, and more. It also provides automatic machines for labs and mass production applications. It was founded in 1991 and is based in Scarmagno, Italy.

Hapa is a supplier of inline printing solutions. It provides printing solutions for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Its solutions include digital printing, flexo printing, hybrid printing, and laser engraving. It was founded in 1933 and is based in Volketswil, Switzerland.

X-Celeprint provides micro-transfer printing (MTP) technology products. It offers lasers, LEDs (light-emitting diodes), integrated circuits, microchips, and more. Its services include design, prototyping, assembly, and printing. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in Cork, Ireland.

BioForce Nanosciences develops and commercializes nanotech instruments, consumables, and applications for the life sciences. The Nano eNabler system is a molecular printer that rapidly and precisely delivers liquids to surfaces such as silicon chips in droplets that are ten billion times smaller than a drop of blood. This unique capability offers researchers in industry and academia a practical solution to problems they encounter when developing ultraminiaturized devices and methods, and creates opportunities for further commercialization of nanotechnology. For example, BioForce's technology is being used to create biosensors and to study cell biology at the single cell level. Additional applications include printing proteins to guide neural cell growth, printing signaling proteins to study stem cell differentiation, "inking" of micro-stamps for soft lithography, and bio-functionalization of microfluidic devices.