23 & 24 October 2024 | Berlin, Germany
TechBlick Future of Electronics RESHAPED - Why Join?
We have prepared a world-class agenda for you, featuring over 70 superb invited talks from around the world, 12 industry- or expert-led masterclasses, 4 tours, and over 80 onsite exhibitors.
In this article series, we highlight various talks in the program, outlining the technologies and applications that will be showcased in the program.
In this article, we discuss the theme of Additive and 3D Electronics, highlighting talks, masterclasses, and tours from the likes of European Space Agency, Yole Group, Decathlon, LPKF Laser & Electronics, Exxelia Micropen, Fuji Corp, Elephant, Nano OPS, Notion Systems, and Henkel and Tecna-Print, Printed Electronics Ltd, ImageXpert, and Quantica.
In follow-up articles, we highlight many more contributions on this theme as well as other key themes such as sustainable electronics, materials innovations, smart surfaces, wearables and electronic textiles, medical electronics, photovoltaics, packaging, novel materials, lighting applications, etc. Stay tuned!
Advanced Electronic Packaging is emerging as a key target application for additive and 2.5D/3D electronics. To this end, we have invited Yole Intelligence - a leading market and technology analyst in the field - to give a keynote, reviewing the latest technology and market trends and drivers, as well as the potential emerging role of new additive manufacturing processes. Furthermore, the innovation and manufacturing landscape in Europe will be discussed and reviewed.
Next, we have invited ESA (European Space Agency) to also give a keynote, focusing on the many motivations to explore, develop and adopt additive manufacturing of electronics (AME) for the space industry. AME offers many unique capabilities, including, but not limited to, local / European ecosystem, green manufacturing, weight reduction, agile manufacturing, and innovative complex designs not achievable using other means.
We have also invited NextFlex to join us as a keynote speaker, offering a US centric view of the latest innovation and manufacturing developments for flexible hybrid electronics (FHE). NextFlex is extremely well placed to offer this perspective as it is at the center of the FHE technology in the US, bringing the ecosystem together, helping with funding, and also at the same time advancing the technology.
Elephantec will join us from Japan to present on its development to enable sustainable and green additive manufacturing of electronics with inkjet. Elephantec is an innovative company in this field, having developed a unique method to sustainably and semi additively manufacture copper based flexible PCBs with properties identical to the wasterful and resource-intensive chemically-etched conventional FPCBs. This approach is based on inkjet printing a special in-house copper formulation as a seed layer with strong adhesion followed by Cu plating to mass manufacture FPBCs. This is one of the most advanced developments in this field.
Fuji Corporation will also join from Japan to report the latest on its additive electronic printer, enabling not just the printing of multilayer 2.D and 3D PCBs but also the integration of SMT components in the same machine. This is an important advancement of the art and technology in the field as it is non trivial to achieve PCB printing as well as SMT mounting and integration in the same machine with a stable and smooth process. This will open the door to many applications requiring additive and sustainable manufacturing of electronics with fine features and complex designs.
Nano OPS will join us from the USA to present their unique directed assembly-based printing method for electronic and advanced packaging manufacturing at not just micro but also the nanoscale! This is truly an innovative approach and radically different from all those based on inkjet or aerosol or similar techniques. Here, a lithographically patterned mask on a wafer creates the openings which are selectively filled - with excellent uniformity and high-aspect ratio at high throughputs - with a range of materials using the directed fluidic. This process enables high-quality nano-scale printing of thin and high-aspect-ratio structure based on a wide menu of materials on silicon wafers at high throughputs without requiring any etching.
Notion Systems will also present their latest advances in bringing additive manufacturing of electronics to mass production. Notion System has unique expertise worldwide both on commercial scale and feature resolution. On the commercial scale, they have delivered machines to print in PCB production as well as OLED displays (latest delivery was a Gen 6 machine!), whilst on the feature resolution front they have advanced inkjet as well as EHD printer technology, taking the resolution down to a few micrometer range.
Exxelia Micropen will also join us from the USA to showcase their unique additive dispense technology, which allows them to print conductive traces, traces and markets on a variety of medical devices with 2D or 3D shapes. This is an advanced manufacturing capability - especially targeting the medical sector - as it is a direct process with good precision, as it can handle a variety of materials with broad viscosity, and as it can be applied to different device shapes using its impressive 5-axis of movement.
Henkel and Tecna-Print will co-present on the stage, reporting the latest on their advancements of 3D pad printing, which is pushed forward by the closer collaboration of these machine and material innovators. This is a unique process that enables one to print inks and pastes onto 3D shaped surfaces with applications in 5G antennas and others. This process is a printing-based alternative to the well-established LDS (laser direct structuring) process used widely in many corners of the electronic industry to metallize 3D shapes.
Of course 3D and/or (semi)additive electronic manufacturing is not limited to printing. In fact, several other processes exist. Other alternative processes include Laser Direct Structuring (LDS) or coated microAM.
Here we will hear from Decathlon, explaining how they have applied and tested the LDS processes on a headlamp product. Here, the motivation is to reduce the CO2 emission by switching away from typically etching-based electronics manufacturing. In this talk, you will learn not just about how LDS can be leveraged in this particular product, but also about the carbon footprint of this process vs conventional technologies as well as the economic evaluation of this process from an end user point of view.
We will also hear from Horizon Microtechnologies, who will report on a novel technique that combines micro-scale additive manufacturing (3D printing) with functional conformal coating to enable photopolymer-based precision 3D printing of parts with electronic functionality. This is a unique approach in that it brings electronic functionality to existing precision 3D printing processes. Here we can see how this process can be applied to develop high-frequency RF devices and electronics.
LPKF Laser & Electronics will join us to present their work. This time they will introduce their semi additive method to enable the integration of brittle glass into 3D packaging. Glass has incredible properties for advanced packaging, but is brittle and difficult to process. LPKF will report on its breakthrough Laser Induced Deep Etching (LIDE) process which enables the process of glass, addressing the material’s brittleness and also facilitating its integration into existing semiconductor and advanced packaging processes.
This theme of additive and 3D manufacturing is so critical to the future of electronics that we have dedicated two masterclasses and a tour to it. This is an excellent chance to learn the latest!
First, you will have the chance to learn about digital additive manufacturing of electronics in 2D, 2.5D and 3D from Printed Electronics Ltd. Here, you can learn about all the key processes including inkjet printing, aerosol, EHD, microdispensing and others. This is a must-attend class for anyone wishing to have an overview of these technologies and their applications.
Next, you can learn from ImageXpert on how to optimize inkjet processes for printed electronics. This is a critical technique as inkjet printing is an art and without the tools and know-how to optimize the process - from waveform selection to all the other parameters - one can not succeed in establishing a stable manufacturing process in good time. This is a must-attend class for anyone wishing to inkjet print functional materials.
Finally you can visit Quantica - an innovative Berlin company developing novel printheads that enable the digital printing of high-viscosity functional materials, breaking the conventional viscosity limits of inkjet printing that several constraints the material choice and enabling new products, new materials and even new business models with digital printing of electronics.
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