Additive Manufacturing of Electronics at the Nano and Microscale for 3D Heterogenous Integration for Advanced Packaging

We introduce a new sustainable and scalable technique to additively manufacture nano and microelectronics. The technique eliminates etching, vacuum deposition and other chemically intensive processing by utilizing direct assembly of nanoscale particles or other nanomaterials at room temperature and atmospheric pressure onto a substrate, to precisely where the structures are built. The presented technology enables the printing of single crystal conductors and semiconductors [1]. The technology enables the additive manufacturing of passive and active components at the nano and microscale using a purely additive (directed assembly enabled) process utilizing inorganic semiconductors, metals and dielectrics nanoparticles. The process demonstrates the manufacturing of transistors with an on/off ratio greater than 10 6 . This new technology will enable the fabrication of nanoelectronics and electronic compenents while reducing the cost by 10-100 times and can print 1000 faster and 1000 smaller (down to 20nm) structures than ink-jet based printing. The nano and microscale printing platform enables the heterogeneous integration of interconnected circuit layers (like CMOS) of printed electronics and sensors at ambient temperature and pressure on rigid or flexible substrates. Printed applications such as transistors, diodes, display [2], all carbon electronics [3], and sensors at the micro and nanoscale using inorganic and organic materials will be presented. The capability of printing RDL, passive and active components monolithically allows the reduction of a board (such as an IoT sensor board) to be within a few mm of the original IC (chip) footprint. Nano OPS introduced the world’s first Nanoscale fully-automated printing system (NanoOPS) prototype with built-in alignment and registration. This is the only demonstrated solution for high-throughput printing of interconnects and circuit components at a scale equal to or less than 2 microns on rigid or flexible substrates. This new Fab-in-a-Box is designed to print electronics and products with minimum features down to 600 nm and is expected to democratize the electronics industry by eliminating the current high-cost entry barrier.