Inkjet printing is of great interest in the field of electronics manufacture because its digital nature negates the need for physical tooling.  A wide variety of active and passive materials are currently being investigated for use in inkjet printed electronics.  These include semiconductors, light emitters and photovoltaic materials as well as dielectric materials and conductors.  The range of conducting materials that can be printed is somewhat limited by the constraints of inkjet printing.  Ideally, particle sizes should be below 1 micron and the viscosities and surface tensions of the fluids need to be tailored to the particular printhead being used.  Regardless of these limitations, various technologies are now being implemented in the production of circuit boards, interconnects and antennas by inkjet printing.  The properties of these inkjet printed circuits do not currently mimic traditional PCB materials – in particular, the sheet resistances of inkjet printed materials tend to be significantly higher than traditional copper clad laminate and the minimum feature sizes are somewhat larger than state of the art semi-additive plating.  However, inkjet printed circuit technologies are a still finding many applications which are particularly well suited to their properties and the digital nature of their application.

Speaker Bio:  Joel Yocom - Business Development Manager

Joel is a 25+ year veteran of the flexible circuit board industry and has specialized in the development of new technologies during much of that time.  He has worked for industry leaders such as Parlex, Litchfield Precision Components and Gould in developing products and services to support the advancement of flexible circuit technology.  For the last 3 ½ years Joel has led the business development efforts for Conductive Inkjet Technology and explored opportunities in the exploding Printed Electronics market.