Latest Advances in Lower Cost High Performance Functional Inks (Printed Electronics Europe 2013)

A range of novel ink developments are described:

1) To manage the fluctuations and uncertainty in the silver price while trying to reduce the cost of devices and components using printed silver conductors, various solutions are investigated; these range from simply reducing the Ag content in the paste to formulating unique Ag-alloy compositions. This approach can provide a cost saving of up to 20%. In addition, faster processing using Photonic sintering is explored and a significant performance/resistivity improvement is demonstrated.

 

2) To enable 3-dimensional capacitive switch circuitry, a specially designed elastic formable silver composition has been developed. Some benefits are outlined particularly in automotive applications. Furthermore, this technology can provide circuit and product designers more freedom to bring creative solutions to their products.

 

3) An improved carbon composition with extremely high Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) characteristic is used to fabricate flexible heater circuits with self-limiting temperature properties. A couple of applications are identified and the benefits of using PTC carbon are described.

Vince Arancio graduated from De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, with an Electronic Engineering degree. He worked in the semi-conductor industry with Texas Instruments, before joining DuPont Microcircuit Materials Division in 1978. With 30yrs experience providing technical support in a variety of industries, Vince has worked with many technologies including ceramic based thick film hybrids and more recently Printed Electronics. Vince is a senior Technical Specialist, managing the European region with expertise in thin film Photovoltaics and other low temperature applications such as Biomedical Sensors, Electroluminescent Lamps and printed RFID Antenna.

DuPont Microcircuit Materials has nearly 50 years of experience in the development, manufacture and sale of specialized ink compositions for a wide variety of substrates and electronic applications in the display, photovoltaic, automotive, biomedical, industrial and telecommunications markets. The company holds a lead position in these markets with success based on close customer relationships and a comprehensive worldwide support infrastructure.

 

At this year's Conference DuPont will be introducing lower cost, high performance conductor materials for Printed Electronics and Thin Film PV applications. The new PE8xx family of low cost conductors for Printed Electronics can provide a >20% cost benefit compared to typical silver conductors and are compatible with both thermal and photonic curing.