Evaluation of Inkjet Technology for Electronic Packaging and System Integration

The main trend of the electronic packaging industry has been on increasing the packaging density and increasing the functionality, but now also the interest on flexible manufacturing has grown. In this paper, we discuss the utilization of the inkjet technology for the electronic packaging and system integration. Inkjet technology provides fully-additive non-contacting deposition method that is suitable for flexible production. In this paper, we demonstrate the capability of the inkjet technology for the printable electronics through a highly-integrated RF SiP application, which is manufactured partly by inkjet printing. The SiP contains discrete components and an ASIC with a minimum pitch of 136 mum and the size of pads is 65 mum. The width of lines/spaces is designed with a rule of 75 mum/75 mum, but also narrower lines can be printed. The width of lines depends on the properties of surface, ink, and drop volume. The properties of the surface can be manipulated with proper surface treatment. In this paper, almost 20% decrease in a diameter of drop is reported when the surface treatment is used.