Wednesday, 9th November 2005 (4374 views)

Boffins at printing firm Dimatix have produced a revolutionary table-top sized printer able to construct circuit boards by dispensing gold, silver and nickel onto an electronic substrate.

The new printer is capable of making solar cells, RFID components and ID tags - alongside a host of other applications.

It's the first ink jet printer able to perform such depositions. Before Dimatix crafted a modified printer head containing special nozzles and pumping chambers, the heat generated from such machines would have simply destroyed metals.

At $30,000 (£17,240) apiece, the equipment also promises to hammer down costs associated with more traditional electronic manufacturing, due to the superior simplicity of the deposition procedure it employs.

"Display companies have publicly announced that they are counting on ink jet technology to replace their current manufacturing methods because it lowers their costs and gives them better precision," Martin Schoeppler, Dimatix's VP corporate strategic business development, told Design News.

Founded in 1984, the California-based outfit claims to be the leading provider of ink jet printheads for both commercial industrial printing.

 

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