Micro Patterning of Nano Metal Ink for Printed Circuit Board Using Inkjet Printing Technology

Inkjet printing has become one of the most attractive manufacturing techniques in industry. Especially inkjet printing technology will soon be part of the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) fabrication processes. Traditional printing on PCB includes screen printing and photolithography. These technologies involve high costs, time-consuming procedures and several process steps. However, by inkjet technology manufacturing time and production costs can be reduced, and procedures can be more efficient. PCB manufacturers therefore willingly accept this inkjet technology to the PCB industry, and are quickly shifting from conventional to inkjet printing. To produce the printed circuit board by the inkjet technology, it must be harmonized with conductive nano ink, printing process, system, and inkjet printhead. In this study, micro patterning of conductive line has been investigated using the piezoelectric printhead driven by a bipolar voltage signal is used to dispense 20-40 diameter droplets and silver nano ink which consists of 1 to 50 nm silver particles that are homogeneously suspended in an organic carrier. To fabricate a conductive line used in PCB with high precision, a printed line width was calculated and compared with printing results.