EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

TFFI’s innovative passive pixel offers various benefits compared to current illumination technology. Most importantly, it allows to show images and videos or to reflect and change light composition with vastly decreased energy consumption. This enables the technology to be used in a wide variety of different application fields.

Goal

Our goal was to identify possible new application fields for TFFI’s passive pixel. The technology is currently still in development, allowing us to search very broadly for potential use cases, as these findings might affect further research and development. A short time-to-market and a good fit with existing capabilities in TFFI’s team were favored when assessing the identified application fields. 

Methodology

Using the community-based technological competence leveraging (TCL) method, our project followed the four main stages of the process. As no customers yet existed, we identified the technology’s benefits through brainstorming sessions, word association analysis, and a large number of interviews. In this step, we tried to understand which benefits matter for potential customers, and after having identified 20 benefits, we ranked them according to a qualitative. We tried to find as many application fields In the second step, the goal was to identify a large number of potential application fields. We were again using creativity techniques to identify fields, in which problems existed to which TFFI’s passive-pixel technology would be the perfect solution.

Additionally, we interviewed 57 experts from fields as varied as optics research, semiconductor manufacturing, ecology, etc. In the third step, we assessed the strategic fit and the benefit relevance of the identified application fields. Last, three application fields have been selected for further study by TFFI based on our strategic fit/benefit relevance assessment. In this in-depth analysis, we investigated the current market and market size, potential (first) customers, and competitors and laid out the next steps the company should take if it wants to pursue these application fields.

Results

In total, we identified 11 highly-promising application fields ranging from new solutions to display art to stealth technology, augmented reality mirrors, or applications in space.

The three application fields that were further pursued were gardening, advertising, and architecture. In this fields, the project results highlight how the technology can play out its competitive edge, especially in terms of ease of installation and energy consumption.

Cooperation Partner

• TFFI GmbH & Co KG
  Teinfaltstraße 9/7, 1010 Wien
  Austria
  www.tffi.eu 

Contact Person

• Sebastian Mayer - sebastian.mayer@tffi-tec.com

Student Team

• Maximilian Müller

• Ben Assa

• Nia Ivanova

• Moritz Jadin

• Jakob Riegler​

Project Manager

• Klaus Marhold, Ph.D.

• Sophie Quach, MA