3D printed microelectronics & new design concepts
Date: Thursday, October 27, 2022
Time: 11AM - 12PM ET
Location: 12-0168 (MIT.nano basement)
Lunch will be provided.
Presenters:
Dr. Rafael del Rey, Head of application engineering at Nano Dimension, Europe
Prof. Zdenek Pliva, Institute of Information Technology and Electronics (ITE), Technical University of Liberec
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The need for more complex but sustainable electronics makes electronic development an increasingly convoluted task. New manufacturing tools and methods are thereby required to generate new sustainable proposals without compromising on complexity such as Additive Manufacturing of Electronics (AME).
Additive manufacturing of printed electronics is replacing traditional development processes in new ways by enabling complex geometries, embedding 3D-printed components, and significantly shortening the development cycle. Furthermore, AME enables embedding of passive and active components within a single package/board.
Fully three-dimensional printed circuit board (PCB) technology brings entirely new possibilities to the design and application of such products. It is a relatively young technology, the development is still ongoing, but now it is possible to fully exploit the possibilities of three-dimensional design optimally for a specific application and thus replace the complex manufacturing processes of standard PCBs.
Nano Dimension uses a manufacturing process (inkjet printing) in which conductive silver nanoparticle ink and insulating ink are bonded and cured/sintered layer by layer, providing new geometric freedom in 3D and thus a variety of novel applications (RF, IC stacking, encapsulated sensors, unconventional system-in-package solutions etc.) which allow for complex features such as curved vias, coaxial and waveguide transmission lines, or truly twisted pair routings.
In this seminar, we would like to present the studies carried out at the Technical University of Liberec, Faculty of Mechatronics, which enabled the first step towards non-traditional applications realized with the Dragonfly LDM2 machine from Nano Dimension as well as discuss the latest development of AME.
The case of the printed fluxgate sensor: the design of the three-dimensional printed coil was initially realized using standard PCB technology; printing on the Dragon Fly LDM2 allowed us to optimize the three-dimensional structure, but in the case of the embedded metal core, the printing process had to be complemented by a non-traditional fabrication procedure.
The case of equipment for cell cultivation: the possibilities of 3D printing motivated us to design better laboratory equipment to replace the glass dishes previously used for cell cultivation. In this presentation we will show the first promising results.
Additionally, the latest developments of AME technology within Nano Dimension and how Nano Dimension sees the future design of printed circuit boards will be showcased, starting with the status quo on current PCB technologies, the generalities of the AME process, and the AME potential applying a new design method for RF applications, complex high density interconnects - HDI, non-planar transmission lines, embedding & encapsulation of components, and electromechanical printed devices, finishing with ways to achieve it using current 2D ECAD tools along with 3D MCAD. Samples printed on the DragonFly will also be showcased.