Inkjet printing in the manufacture of electronics, photonics, and displays

Ink-jet printing technologies are now being developed and used across a wide spectrum of optoelectronic and microelectronic manufacturing applications, because they provide opportunities both for significant cost reductions in existing components and for new component and device configurations. Examples of cost reductions in existing component configurations include printing of optical epoxies to fabricate precision microlens arrays for micro-mirror-based MEMS optical switches and fluxless printing of solder bumps for flip-chip BGA, μBGA and CSP (chin-scale package) manufacture. The most widely recognized, relatively new application of ink-jet printing has arisen in the manufacturing of PLED (Polymer-LED) displays. Potential uses of these technologies for creating new device and package configurations that provide both higher performance and lower cost include microlens printing directly onto VCSELs or the tips of optical fibers for increasing the efficiency of coupling and solder ball printing for making right-angle electrical connections, in order to enable further miniaturization of optoelectronic packages. Example ofnew device configurations which may be fabricated using these capabilities include chip-level optical switches, transceivers, transmitters and receivers.