Decal Electronics

A new approach

For the first time, an affordable and reliable manufacturing process for the integration and packaging of fully flexible high-performance electronics has been developed for future IoT and IoE applications. The reported process shows a method based on emerging additive manufacturing technology 3D printing to tackle the long lasting challenge of low performance printed electronics. The fabrication processes used for the development of decal electronics are fully compatible with the most advanced nanofabrication techniques, making the concept of decal electronics the solution for challenges, commonly faced by printed electronics, such as poor feature resolutions and material incompatibility.

Also, the roll-to-roll printing capability gives decal electronics the advantage of allowing high throughput in highly complex flexible electronics systems. The demonstrated circuits show no performance degradation due to flexing or packaging processes. Hence, making this technology suitable for future consumer electronic applications. Also, the materials used in the fabrication process show the broad spectrum of technologies to which the concept can be applied as a mean of packaging and interconnecting electronics devices. Here, the devices are fabricated using mature CMOS processes such as photolithography, deposition, and patterning on a low-cost silicon (100) substrate.

“User engagement and experience has become a major focus for any web-based service in recent years”

The packaging materials are printed using 3D printing technologies and the interconnections are made using inkjet printing of silver nanoparticles-based inks. Finally, the system scale printing is done using a custom made roll-to-roll printing platform. The concept finally joins the better of two worlds, the performance and cost advantage of inorganic electronics, with the high throughput, simplicity, and flexibility of printed electronics.

So where to from here then?

Well, they all sound interesting but how they change our life (which is our goal for next 10 years). Take two examples:
a. Concept of Internet of Everything (IoE) lies within the fact that how any object that we see today can be smartized. Well, using what we showed we can stick decal electronic systems to them like previous RFID tags but with much more functionalities and performance.
b. Today in a traditional electronic lab setup, we get blind looking for an IC where they all look same.
We show that every IC can have a face, a shape, a size – an identity. Instead of placing them on breadboard or PCB, one can place them on any substrate and then draw wire connections as one wants and can see a whole system is built.

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