New ink enables narrow linewidth features
Electroninks, the leader in particle-free metal inks and advanced conductive materials, announced the confirmation of an enhanced particle-free silver ink product with aerosol jet printing compatibility for ultra-fine line printing requirements for Electroninks’ commercial customers.
As a recognized industry leader of metal complex particle-free conductive inks, Electroninks developed an enhanced particle-free silver ink designed for fine-line, low temperature curing with aerosol jet printing that delivers a best-in-class combination of print resolution, electrical performance, and process temperature.
The new ink product has broad impacts as aerosolized printing heads are compact, can be easily integrated into production lines, or placed on robotic arms for multi-axis additive manufacturing of conductive interconnects and circuits. This manufacturing technique is ideal for highly precise semiconductor packaging, aerospace, display, and biomedical applications. The use of the particle-free ink with aerosol jet printing makes it possible for manufacturers to reduce the size, power and weight of devices, making it ideal for interconnects and metallization in mobile and wearable products, foldable displays, biomedical devices and sensors, and conformal 3D parts.
“At Electroninks, we are committed to providing our customers with the highest performing products and solutions to meet the demands of their emerging manufacturing technologies and products,” said Electroninks co-founder and President, Melbs LeMieux. “Our new enhanced particle-free silver ink product is compatible with aerosol jet printing technology and allows our partners and commercial customers to meet difficult specifications.”
Aerosol jet printing is an additive manufacturing process that prints commercially available conductive, dielectric, semiconductor, and biologic inks onto a variety of 2D or 3D plastic, ceramic, and metallic substrates. Electroninks particle-free inks provide versatile, low-cost, domestically produced, all-in-one additive manufacturing solutions.
Electroninks’ novel particle-free ink formulation and capabilities interested In-Q-Tel, Inc., the strategic investor to the U.S. intelligence community, which joined with Electroninks as an additional strategic partner and investor. The partnership with In-Q-Tel will allow Electroninks to deliver its products at scale to its government partners in national security as well as for broader commercial usage.
“In-Q-Tel understands the value that Electroninks’ technology and team know-how can provide to the manufacturing of interconnects,” said Victoria Chernow, Ph.D., Technology Architect, In-Q-Tel. “We believe our strategic investment in Electroninks will contribute to our partners’ mission needs.”
Electroninks is delivering a more cost-effective and efficient use of many noble metals through its particle-free ink formulations, including gold, platinum, nickel, and copper. Its particle-free silver ink delivers higher conductivity, flexibility and cost-effectiveness making them ideal for today’s smaller, lighter, more highly functional electronic products.
The aerosol jet printing compatible particle-free silver ink is capable of being printed at <15um resolution, with up to 10um height, up to 3x bulk conductivity of silver, while being cured at no higher than 120C, while maintaining certain manufacturing and throughput specifications.
Development Team Quotes:
“The newly developed silver ink combines best-in-class electrical performance with fine feature printing,” said Garret McKerricher, Senior Scientist, Electroninks. “The ink is capable of ultrasonic aerosol jet printing and demonstrates fine feature printing at less than 20um resolution with high aspect ratios.”
“The new silver ink provides good resistivity at a low curing temperature, and has high volume output, ” said Yuan Gu, Senior Scientist, Electroninks. “Combined with room temperature printability, the ink is ideal for3D surfaces printing on wrap-around and other flexible surfaces.”
About Electroninks
Electroninks Inc. provides high-performance, advanced materials that enable technology and manufacturing breakthroughs with our innovative customers to turn promising ideas into profitable new products. The company’s portfolio of products based on its proprietary particle-free conductive metal inks provides cost-effective, highly stable and reliable solutions for applications in semiconductor packaging, consumer electronics, and medical devices. The company is the first to provide particle-free conductive inks in silver, gold, platinum, nickel, and copper. Electroninks’ novel formulations are ideal for the design and manufacturing of today’s smaller, lighter, more highly functional electronic products as well as agile manufacturing and rapid maintenance needs.
Electroninks has forged strategic partnerships with Applied Materials, Merck, FujiFilm, the DoD and other Tier 1 equipment and supply chain partners that allow the company to focus on innovation, while still meeting customers’ demands for quality, reliability and scale. To date, Electroninks has raised Series A and B funding from firms known for material science development and defense integration including Applied Materials, In-Q-Tel, Inc., Band Gap Ventures, ITIC, and M-Ventures. Electroninks is located in Austin, Texas.
Broader selection of metals fuels innovation in product development and provides greater flexibility in manufacturing
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Jan 12, 2022– Electroninks, the leader in particle-free conductive metal inks and advanced materials, today announced the addition of gold (Au) and platinum (Pt) particle-free conductive inks to its catalog of products. The addition of gold and platinum inks gives makers of consumer electronics, medical devices, sensors and semiconductors the ability to make lighter, less expensive, and more environmentally friendly products.
The demand for powerful microelectronics packed into consumer and industrial products of different shapes and sizes has never been greater. From foldable displays in new 5G phones to medical sensors in athletic wear to new materials and architecture in semiconductor packaging, powerful tiny circuitry is making it possible, and Electroninks’ broader line of conductive inks is enabling greater innovation in this field.
Electroninks has already established a superior particle-free ink in the market with its conductive silver ink. The new gold and platinum metal inks consist of metal-organic precursors that decompose cleanly at lower temperatures than nanoparticle inks and can be UV-cured. The inks are unique to the market, providing deep savings on material use (and waste) and costs for customers by enabling similar electrical and reliability properties of vacuum or plated films of gold and platinum.
Opening additional doors in product manufacturing, the new inks are catalytically active (may serve as a seed layer) and have a high corrosion resistance — ideal for protective circuits, gas, thermal and biological sensors. Unlike traditional gold and platinum inks that are based on metal nanoparticles dispersed with organics/polymers which degrades performance, Electroninks’ particle-free inks enable reliable printing and manufacturing in non-typical and even space-like environments for its aerospace and defense customers.
Commitment to the Customer
Electroninks first developed silver inks based on the philosophy that pure metallic films are the best way to increase performance and reliability while reducing overall cost of manufacturing and ownership. Aligning with its mission to fundamentally change the way its customers develop new hardware technologies and improve manufacturing processes, Electroninks developed gold and platinum inks to fill the need of a wide range of applications in electronics, including forming contacts in microelectronic devices, high temperature, electrochemical and catalytic applications. The gold and platinum inks provide high performance and reliability at high temperatures, making them ideal for use in aerospace and biomedical devices.
“As electronic materials and supply chains become more critical due to their usage in nearly all products that impact our lives, the demand for innovation and products making it all possible has hit a tipping point, as we have seen in the past year. Electronics are now miniaturized, wearable, foldable and manufactured with new methods all at the same time,” said Melbs LeMieux, co-founder and president, Electroninks. “Entirely new solutions providing greater design flexibility are needed. We are committed to providing our customers with the highest quality inks to meet new technological demands that will shape the future of every electronic product.”
The Particle-Free Difference
Electroninks has developed particle-free inks to provide the markets with a material that can withstand high temperatures and humidity, making them ideal for use in an increasing variety of applications. With the excellent reliability of the material combined with iso-certified manufacturing, Electroninks is the only company to deliver this level of quality and performance from gold and platinum materials. The company aims to be the main supplier of true high-volume manufacturing particle-free metal complex inks on the market. These inks are a direct replacement for nanoparticle inks, metal paste, and sputtered or deposited metals.
Electroninks’ inks resulting films are stretchable, highly reflective, RoHS compliant, catalytically active, and antimicrobial, allowing developers to utilize multi-hour printing to produce products showcasing extreme detail. Particle-free inks also have a longer shelf-life than nanoparticle solutions because traditional binders and surfactants are not used in Electroninks’ metallo-organic inks. Electroninks inks are free from impurities – approaching 99.99% metal in resulting films, providing superior environmental stability and reliability.
Due to the superior conductivity that Electroninks’ particle-free inks offer, the same device performance can be achieved by using much less material at a fraction of the regular production costs. The high prices of gold, platinum and other precious metals have limited their widespread use in the advanced manufacturing industry. Electroninks’ particle-free inks are able to reduce prices without sacrificing quality, which can have a broad impact on the overall conductive precious metals market and their sustainable usage.
About Electroninks
Electroninks Inc. provides high-performance, advanced materials that enable technology and manufacturing breakthroughs with our innovative customers to turn promising ideas into profitable new products. The company’s portfolio of products based on its proprietary particle-free conductive metal inks provides cost-effective, highly-stable and reliable solutions for applications in semiconductor packaging, consumer electronics, and medical devices. The company is the first to provide particle-free conductive inks in silver, gold, platinum, nickel and copper. Electroninks’ novel formulations are ideal for the design and manufacturing of today’s smaller, lighter, more highly functional electronic products as well as agile manufacturing and rapid maintenance needs.
Electroninks has forged strategic partnerships with Fortune 500 companies, the DoD and other Tier 1 equipment and supply chain partners that allow the company to focus on innovation, while still meeting customers demands for quality, reliability and scale. To date, Electroninks has raised Series A and B funding from firms known for material science development and defense integration including Applied Materials, InQTel, Band Gap Ventures, ITIC, and M-Ventures. Electroninks is located in Austin, Texas.
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