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Aerosol Jet Technology for Production Grade/Scale Printed Electronics
November 20, 2014 |Estimated reading time: 1 minute
Although printing techniques such as screen-printing have long been used to produce portions of an electronic system, such as conductive traces, solder masks, or component silk screens on a circuit board, the term printed electronics (PE) generally refers to more recent developments where common low-cost graphics printing technologies are applied to the production of the various elements of an electronic end-product. These include gravure, flexography, ink jet, aerosol jet, etc.
While traditional electronic products are the current beneficiaries of PE, a new generation of smart devices with integrated sensors and antennas enabling the Internet of Things hold even greater potential for widespread adoption. For example, printed strain gauges that conform to the critical surface areas will measure stresses and initiate corrective action before catastrophic failure. This new generation of intelligent devices will require new manufacturing methods that can closely couple electronics onto mechanical structures.
Evolution of PE
In its original vision, PE presumed that the entirety of fairly complex end-products (e.g., solar cell, display, smart card, etc.) would be produced solely with printing technologies. But in reality commercial success to date has been limited to fairly simple, and in some cases novelty, products (e.g., greeting cards, signage, RFID, etc.).
This has caused some suppliers to take a more pragmatic view and leverage the benefits of printed electronics initially as a point solution that can add value to existing manufacturing lines and existing commercial products. For example:
- Solar cell: Replace screen-printing to reduce the size of collector lines.
- Display: Replace photolithography to lower cost of jumper circuits.
- Smartcard: Replace wirebond to produce robust conformal interconnects.
While implementations such as these are gaining traction with industry, the pace of more widespread adoption has been slowed by many factors, including risk aversion to replacing entrenched solutions, limited availability of low-cost electronic inks, and the lack of reliable high-volume systems for printing electronics.Read the full article here.Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the September 2014 issue of The PCB Magazine.