Structural Electronics through Additive Manufacturing and Micro-Dispensing

Implementing electronics systems that are conformal with curved and complex surfaces is difficult if not impossible with traditional fabrication techniques, which require stiff, two dimensional printed circuit boards (PCB). Flexible copper based fabrication is currently available commercially providing conformance, but not simultaneously stiffness. Consequently, these systems are susceptible to reliability problems if bent or stretched repeatedly. The integration of Additive Manufacturing (AM) combined with Direct Print (DP) micro-dispensing can provide shapes of arbitrary and complex form which incorporate 1) miniature cavities for insetting electronic components and 2) conductive traces for electrical interconnect between components. The fabrication freedom introduced by AM techniques such as stereolithography (SL), ultrasonic consolidation (UC), and fused deposition modeling (FDM) have only recently been explored in the context of electronics integration. Advanced dispensing processes have been integra...