Production Processes for Smart Systems - Printing & nanoimprinting
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Overview Printing processes build up material in prescribed shapes upon a surface and range from the deposition of material via screen printing and other printing methods, through to nanoimprinting, which at the nano- scale may combine stamping with material deposition to create fine surface features. “Jetting” of liquid or molten materials is a non-contact method for pattern generation, and has the useful ability to be applied to contoured surfaces. The “3D printing” of bulk materials does not necessarily depend upon a surface to build upon, and is treated in this chapter as “Direct Manufacturing & Rapid Prototyping”. Importance for Smart Systems Integration
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Hurdles to be overcome
Centres of excellence VTT, IMEC, several industrial companies such as NIL, Microdrop, Zeiss, KIT (Germany). |
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Prospects Printed Smart Systems promise new display technologies, flexible, non-planar substrates, and advances in Human Machine Interfaces. The process is ideally suited for the mass manufacture of low cost items, and for the integration of Smart functionality into everyday objects. Impact Printing, depositing materials only where required, is a low-loss process. Currently there is wide use of printing technologies to form passive interconnects. Development will create printed active components, sensors and actuators. |
The indicators above and below are shaded to reflect uncertainty
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