Functionalization of additive manufactures components with laser direct structurable lacquer

MID technology offers high potential for the development of innovative products. The integration of electronic and mechanical functions on spatial circuit boards allows the realization of modules with high functional density, freedom of design and a significant degree of miniaturization. However, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the technology the product development is faced with barriers. These include mechanical, thermal and electrical interactions as well as restrictions between the product design and the production process. The cost-intensive injection moulding for the manufacture of the base part of functional products also hinders extensive market penetration. On the other hand, additive manufacturing technologies offer the potential to effectively meet the before mentioned challenges of fast reaction times and high flexibility in small quantities and thus profoundlychange industrial production. In combination with MID-technology, individually manufactured components can be directly equipped with electronic components for the first time and thus be electrically functionalized.With this fusion, the functional range of a component can be extended significantly, the integration density increases and the reliability is improved by saving additional assembly steps. With regard to small batch sizes, the combination of an additive production of a base body and subsequent coating with laser-directly structured lacquer (LDS lacquer) eliminates the cost-intensive injection molding. This process has been developed for rapid prototyping initially; reliability and longterm stability were of secondary importance. In this paper we present an approach to improve the properties of lacquerbased additively produced MIDs.