I read about this last night in maximum pc. The article claimed 20 layers! so I went searching for a picture.
Check out www.engadget.com.
THey describe:
"Epson prints 1mm thick circuit boards on an inkjet.
Really brings new meaning to the term “printed circuit board” when Epson goes and creates a process by which an inkjet printer can literally spit out complicated boards. Circuit paths are drawn by conductive ink and layered between coats of insulator ink. Naturally you shouldn’t expect to be able to download and shoot out the latest nVidia or ATI board every 1.3 days they release a new one, but this could mean really, really big things for portable electronics and wearable computing since these boards are only 1mm thick at 20 layers (trust us, that’s pretty amazing)."
Thursday, January 13, 2005
EPSON Inkjet PCB
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6 comments:
mmm i wonder what they are using as a substrate.
also, fyi epson also has a press release that is a better link than another blog.
if that press release had been higher on the food chain in google, i'd of posted it.
good find.
i'm all for linking to where you found the info, if it was ona blog then give a link to the blog and 'help a brother out', but thanks for the official link.
current circuit boards (PCBs) ARE Printed Circuit Boards. they just use more a silk-screen stencil approach in a round about kind of way. I think they expose a fiberglass board that has been coated with copper and a photoresist (positive or negative) to an IMAGE of what the wires are to look like, and then it is developed like film, in big vats o' crap. so even though it isn't 'printed' as litterally as epson is doing it, it is printed like a photograph.
for multi layer boards you just take lots of these little slices and press them together, plate the vias, apply solder mask, print the silkscreen (usually on top, sometimes on bottom) and WALLA, you have a PCB. if you want it to cost 200$ you buy it from a US supplier, if you want it for 5$ you buy it from china.
Speaking of small computer type things - I was watched the end of a lecture on the research channel (new channel we get thanks to dish network :)) about them puting computer circuit type things on moths that had the ability to stimulte neurons in the moth... here is the slides to the presentation http://www.cs.washington.edu/nae/presentations/daniel_diorio_files/frame.htm hope that works...
nice find, janell.
i'm sure the military would love to print out a special circuit board, stick it to a moth, fly the moth down the throat of some terrorist, and then detonate the moth.
considering they've not made micro flight very feasable, maybe they'll rewire nature to obtain the results.
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