Capability of inkjet technology in electronics manufacturing

Abstract

The past decade has seen a growing interest in additive manufacturing and printable electronics. The main markets are expected to be among low-cost mass production of radiofrequency identification (RFID) tags, antennas, keyboards, displays, sensors, and smart packages, but also high-performance products. This paper focuses on process improvement and capability analysis of inkjet technology in electronics manufacturing using six sigma methodology. It provides not only tools and roadmaps for technical development and process improvement, but also a systematic program management tools for technology development also in industrial-academic collaboration. This paper focuses on the printing accuracy and quality issues in inkjet printing technology. The scaling of the image and the alignment capability of the process is analyzed by printing several dot matrixes on polyimide substrates and measuring the places of the inkjetted drops from substrates and comparing those onto the locations of the dots in printfile. This data is used to generate a mathematical model, which was used to correct the shifting and scaling of the image yielding to improved process capability.