Printing

Speaking in Frankfurt this week, Division Manager Karsten Ries of Mekoprint Graphic Electronics said that his company has been printing mobile phone antennas, mobile phone speaker membranes, antennas in side view mirrors of cars and RFID antennas for many years.

Kodak has developed a fast, printing-like process to fabricate high-performance zinc oxide (ZnO) transistors in open atmospheric conditions.

As long as printed RFID is struggling to overcome serious technical and economic difficulties, other alternatives to identify objects stay in focus with several research groups and companies.

In the last year, the burgeoning printed and thin film electronics industry has greatly enhanced its repertoire and changed its priorities, encompassing such things as rapid commercialisation of disposable and invisible electronics.

The subject of energy harvesting making small electronic and electric devices self-sufficient, usually for decades - is changing rapidly.

ImageXpert's JetXpert system combines state of the art, proprietary strobing technology with customized optics and powerful ImageXpert software to provide a flexible platform for analyzing the performance of any print head through drop-in-flight analysis and visualization.

"In a collaborative effort, Clemson University will conduct a holistic approach to packaging sciences, combining many academic disciplines, to learn how to best create packaging, hot to print, fill, seal, ship and recycle, responsibly".

Optomec announced today that Dave Ramahi, Optomec's President/CEO will give a Masterclass presentation on Aerosol Jet Deposition technology for C-Si and Thin Film Photovoltaics at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics conference in Dresden, Germany on April 6th.

iTi Solar has been selected by Solarcoating Machinery GmbH (ScM) of Germany, a supplier of turnkey production line solutions for flexible solar cell fabrication, to provide the first digital inkjet system for its integrated roll-to-roll solar cell manufacturing production line.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics can now print electronic circuitry with copper and/or silver ink using an environmentally friendly and economically viable process. The company is a leader in displays, including OLED and e-paper, and has significant work on thin film transistors. Now it enters inkjet print head and material manufacture.

Optomec's Aerosol Jet system has been used to fully print Carbon NanoTube (CNT) based Thin Film Transistors (TFT) with operating frequencies over 5 Gigahertz (GHz). The work was conducted in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts and Brewer Science, Inc.

imaging Technology international (iTi) Corporation today announced iTi Solar, an equipment manufacturing division established to advance the development of precision industrial inkjet systems that enable solar cell producers to improve production efficiency and reduce manufacturing costs.

TTP and ImageXpert Inc. are pleased to announce a collaboration to supply a complete ink development tool that will speed up inkjet printhead, ink and system development.

Whether printing with a graphics ink or a functional fluid for printed electronics, photovoltaic, coatings or other industrial application, visualization and analysis of jetting parameters is an essential primary step for successful printing or materials deposition.

Soligie, a market leader in the design and manufacture of Printed Electronics and ACreo, a leading Swedish research institute, have announced that they have entered into an agreement for the development and volume manufacturing of Acreo's printed electrochromic display technology, PaperDisplay™.

Soligie, a market leader in design and manufacture of Printed Electronics, has announced that industry veteran Dr. David Fyfe has joined Soligie's Advisory Board.

Rogers will showcase its Printed Electronics and Lighting Solutions at the Printed Electronics USA 2008 show (December 3-4, in San Jose, CA).

The ISRA VISION Smash PCB™ inspection system can be used in printed electronics applications to detect defects to include: mis-registration, shorts, opens, cracks, "mouse bites", and substrate defects.

prelonic build first display - battery modules: fully printed, on one substrate and low-cost. Focused to mass production processes these prototypes will be the base of the starting business in 2009.

IDTechEx's technology analyst Dr Harry Zervos attended GRAPH EXPO 2008 and reports on the innovative technologies that could benefit from the merging of electronics and printing.

Further to the company visits covered in yesterday's article, attendees to the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Asia event in Tokyo last week had the opportunity to visit Dai Nippon Printing, Frontier Carbon Corporation and Toppan Printing. Here we cover some of the highlights.

IDTechEx is famed for organising visits to local centers of excellence. On 30 September, delegates were treated to visits to the University of Tokyo and the skyscrapers of Sony and Toppan Forms in central Tokyo.

238 people attended the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Asia 2008 conference and exhibition on October 8-9 this week. Companies attended included Toppan Forms, Panasonic, Dai Nippon Printing, Sony, Samsung, Toyota, Mitsubishi Plastics, Brother Industries, Teijin, Konica Minolta, Mitsui, Toshiba and Honda to name a few.

Seiko Epson is famous for piezo electric inkjet printing and it is this printing platform that the company is applying to printing electronic materials. Paul Patterson of Seiko Epson gives IDTechEx a brief insight into the company's history and expertise with printed electronics.

IDTechEx recently visited Soligie in Minnesota, USA. Soligie is progressing the know how to co deposit different components on the same substrate, which IDTechEx feels is of great importance but under-addressed by the industry.

IDTechEx report on the SEMICON West event held in San Francisco in mid July - an event with over one thousand exhibitors covering the silicon supply chain.

Researchers created a flexible circuit containing more than 100 transistors, the largest nanonet ever produced and the first demonstration of a working nanonet circuit.

Printed electronics is used in RFID to a steadily increasing extent as volumes start to exceed those met in any other form of electronics.

Holst Centre will initially focus its activities on large-area printing and printed structures on flexible substrates around the Roll-to-Roll line. Main application driver is the development of device layouts and processes for flexible OLED lighting and signage.

The extended joint collaboration is focused on developing reliable print manufacturing processes for high volume production of Thinfilm's memory technology. The work will be performed at InkTec's 2nd factory in Pyungtaek-city, Korea.

Koichi Mizugaki of SEIKO EPSON Corporation describes how SEIKO EPSON has been working on the manufacture of Printed Circuit Boards through inkjet printing.

Hewlett Packard described one of the most accomplished feats of engineering in reel to reel production of transistor circuits at Printed Electronics Europe.

IDTechEx visited OTB Engineering who have links to Philips and other local companies active in printed and thin film electronics.

Printed electronics is evolving so fast that the full variety of benefits arising has yet to become clear.

3M uses balls with self levelling RFID tags in them for location and identity of gas and other pipelines in the USA - a similar function is now being performed in China.

Germany's expertise in industrial production, printing processes, and chemicals - all essential elements to printed electronics - make it a leading location for investments.

Scientists from Tokyo University have just revealed a reliable method to inkjet print dots of one micron on to flexible film.

The vibrant new printed electronics industry is being created as energetically in Germany as anywhere else in the world.

Versatile, serviceable design enhances efficiency and allows for 5x higher resolution than possible with screen printing.

The money spent on printed and potentially printed electronics doubled in 2007, as did the number of organisations participating.

Following the recent breathrough of the US company Kovio in printing nanosilicon transistors in thousands with much smaller size and better performance than printed polymer transistors we now have 3D printing of silicon, a completely different process.

Printed electronics still use conventional sources of power but this may change in the future with the newly developed printable batteries printed onto a surface with

Emerson & Cuming has added the well-known series of polymer thick films, conductive inks and coatings of sister company Acheson Electronic Materials to its own circuit assembly materials offerings.

Following in the footsteps of its patented analog plate with a completely flat topped dot - ExSpect™, PRP Flexo, Indianapolis USA has just announced that it has achieved the same profile within a completely digital environment, thereby enabling the same print advantages of their analog plate but with a completely digital workflow.

Laser Direct Pattern Etching (LDPE) using high-power lasers and project optics can be used to directly etch thin metal layers on plastic substrates forming circuits. With this new method of patterning, thin metal circuits can be produced at very high production rates, significantly reducing the cost of circuit production.

By laser-treating ink consisting of coated nano-particles of metal, scientists in Switzerland are able to manufacture a wide variety of printed microelectronics.

Europe has far more organisations active in the subject of printed and potentially printed electronics than any other continent.