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no resist, the silver is dissolved by the etching chemical. Other electronic devices can then be added
to the fabric using cold soldering, as shown in Error! Reference source not found..
Fig. 15 CircuiteX TM fabric by Sauquoit Industries [51]
2.1.3.4 Conductive materials as power supply
Power supply technologies provide the electrical power for activating the components integrated in the
electronic textile and it is still a critical issue in the field of wearable electronics. Until now, primary
(non-rechargeable) and secondary (rechargeable) batteries are predominantly used to provide
electrical power for activating the components integrated in the textile. However, there is a great effort
being made to produce very small, powerful and rechargeable batteries. A battery might also be
embedded into clothing components, like a button [56].
Fig. 16 Design of an autonomous ‘sensor button’ [56]
The figure shows an autonomous sensor button developed at Wearable Computing Laboratory of the
ETH Zürich. It consists of a light processor, a microphone, an accelerator, a microprocessor and a RF
transceiver. A solar cell powers the system [56].
An example of a battery capable of providing electrical power for interactive electronic textiles was
recently developed by a German research team led by The Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and
Microintegration (FhG-IZM). This research team developed a small battery that can be printed on a
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