Mesoscale Deposition Technology for Electronics Applications

The continual drive for smaller, more powerful and economic electronic systems, has led to the development of a new manufacturing technology, Maskless Mesoscale Materials Deposition (M
³
D). Without masks or resists, features down to 10 microns can be directly written in a wide variety of materials, including metals, ceramics, polymers and adhesives, on virtually any surface material - silicon, glass, polymers, metals and ceramics. For polymer substrates with a low temperature tolerance, M
³
D locally processes the deposition through a laser scanning process. The end result is a high-quality thin film with excellent edge definition and near-bulk electronic properties. As a CAD driven, additive manufacturing process, M
³
D provides significant environmental benefits and reduced processing requirements, eliminating the waste associated with traditional subtractive (e.g. mask and etch) processes. M
³
D can also precisely deposit materials on non-planar substrates. With no physical contact with the substrate by any portion of the tool other than the deposition stream, conformal writing is easily achieved. Other benefits include: • Time Compression and Increased Manufacturing Agility, • Lower Costs and • Better Product Designs. This paper will detail the benefits of M
³
D technology in creating mesoscale features for electronics assembly and semiconductor packaging applications. It will outline some of the current application areas including polymer deposition for electronics.