Fabrication and measurement of the performance of a printed EMI shielding mesh filter on PET film

In this paper, Electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding mesh filter films are fabricated using the screen printing method. An EMI shielding mesh filter requires fine line patterns under 30 μm, therefore, the screen masks with fine-line screen mesh, as well as suitable ink composed of fine metal particles are required. Moreover, because the printed EMI shielding filter has to be fabricated on a PET film, the ink should be sintered at a temperature below 150°C not to deform the film. For the purposes of this study, a screen mesh with a mask of 20 μm line, and ink made nano silver paste with a sintering temperature of 140°oC, which could guarantee fine-line patterning on the PET, were used. The ink had a viscosity of 90,000–12,000 cps and metal content of 85% in weight. The printed EMI shielding mesh had a line width of about 24 μm and a thickness of about 2.5 μm. The measured surface resistance was 0.5∼0.7 ω/□, offering good electrical performance as an EMI mesh. A simple measurement system was used to evaluate the electrical shielding performance of the printed EMI shielding mesh. A comparison of the printed EMI shielding mesh with pure film without mesh and copper sheet revealed that the printed EMI shielding mesh is indeed capable of providing good electrical performance.