XEROX's PRINTABLE ELECTRONICS BREAKTHROUGH

[Anonymous]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2354848,00.asp
XEROX’s PRINTABLE ELECTRONICS BREAKTHROUGH
Xerox
on Tuesday announced a new silver ink that it’s calling a breakthrough
in printable electronics, a leading-edge concept that’s generated a lot
of discussion but few actual products to date. Why? Precisely because
of the issues that Xerox claims to have addressed.In concept, printable
electronics is just what it sounds like: using a printer, basically an
inkjet, to print electronic circuits. If one can do that reliably,
electronic devices can be printed for far less than current methods
cost. One can also print the devices on a variety of new materials.

The
possibilities range from printing on flexible plastic (opening the door
to displays you can roll up and put your briefcase), to paper and
cardboard (for packaging that can give audio and video instructions for
assembling a product, provide active reminders to take medicine or
confirm whether you already took it), to fabric (which could allow
wearable electronics – a T-shirt with a display, say, replacing a
printed slogan for marketing or for showing support for a political
candidate.)”We will be able to print circuits in almost any size from
smaller custom-sized circuits to larger formats such as wider rolls of
plastic sheets – unheard of in today’s silicon-wafer industry,” said
Hadi Mahabadi, vice president and center manager of Xerox Research
Centre Canada, in a statement. “We are taking this technology to
product developers to enable them to design tomorrow’s uses for
printable electronics.”

Until now, the concept of printable
electronics has been more promise than reality. One of the few actual
applications has been printing antennas for RFID tags (the technology
EZ-Pass or FastPass uses to charge passing cars tolls without forcing
them to stop). Some have predicted that the ability to print the entire
RFID tag, instead of just the antenna (and print it cheaply enough), is
the point where printable electronics will begin to take off. Xerox
says it could bring the cost of RFID tags down from the current dollar
or so each to roughly a penny each, which could be that point.

The
big hurdle for printable electronics has been finding a practical (as
well as economical) way to implement it. Given the goal of being able
to print on everything from paper, to cardboard, to plastic, one of the
big problems has been that the temperature needed to melt silver ink
for printing – the conductor needed for electronics – tends to be too
high for the materials you want to print on. Plastic, for example,
tends to melt, when the hot ink is applied.

According to Xerox,
one of the key benefits of its technology is that it can print with
silver ink at a much lower temperature than competing technologies,
which makes it much easier for the materials it’s printing on to
survive. The ink has also been reformulated so that the molecules
precisely align themselves in the best configuration to conduct
electricity.

Likewise, circuits can also be printed in non-clean
room environments, Xerox claims. According to Xerox, printing with
competing technologies in open-air environments results in circuits
that don’t last long or aren’t consistently reliable. However, Xerox
says that its technology doesn’t need a clean room any more than a
standard printer needs one for putting ink or toner on paper.

Finally,
Xerox says that they’ll make the technology available to others.
Assuming it does what Xerox is claiming, and assuming other companies
agree it does what they need, this new technology may be just the
breakthrough the industry needs to jump-start printable electronics as
a major new approach to building electronic devices.

[Author]

October 30, 2009 at 12:28 PM