Director of Product Management Komori America, IL, United States
As FHE continues to expand, new knowledge, techniques and applications are rapidly appearing for each segment of FHE creation. One of the basic FHE requirements is the ability to create fine, conductive traces. While there are several different methods of printing conductive lines, gravure offset offers additional abilities that expand applications.
The mechanical precision of gravure offset equipment encourages applications that would not typically be associated with trace printing such as using gravure offset equipment to print flux paste directly onto electrodes while the chips are still together as a wafer. A separate machine can then be used to apply solder balls onto the chips.
Similarly, gravure offset can be used to print micro bumps of solder paste for micro/mini-LED applications and is accurate enough that even after reflow, the micro bumps are of an acceptable size on a variety of wafer diameters.
While new materials and applications are continually growing, gravure offset does not discriminate between applying flake Ag paste for printed circuitry, nano Ag paste for solder joints, flux paste printing for solder ball mounting, solder paste, solder resist and etching resist for micro-LED applications.
Adding to the versatility of gravure offset is the synergy that can be achieved by merging the strengths of gravure offset and screen technology (as well as others). This can lead to fine featured fanout traces being created with gravure offset and the larger traces leading off the fanout being created by screen printing.
Creative application of the strengths of different equipment and technologies can increase the usefulness achieved by companies and allow exploration of different applications and techniques in the ever-expanding world of flexible hybrid electronics.
