Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society

To overcome the limitations of conventional inkjet printing technology in fine patterning, we designed and developed an aerosol 3D printing system (A3DP) using pneumatics. The A3DP system consists of a pneumatic control unit, an atomizer, a virtual impactor, and a nozzle head using sheath gas. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of process parameters on micro patterning in the A3DP system using pneumatics, and print 10 µm micro patterning on the substrate in this system. In this paper, the effects of process parameters such as stand-off distance, sheath gas flow rate, and printing speed on micro patterning were experimented, and the results showed that a stand-off distance of 1 mm to 5 mm and a focusing ratio (FR) of 4 to 6 are suitable for micro patterning. Based on the above, we confirmed the possibility of achieving 10 µm micro patterning on the pneumatic A3DP, which is difficult to achieve with conventional inkjet printing, by ejecting line widths of 33.07 µm with a 300 µm nozzle, 23.75 µm with a 200 µm nozzle, and 16.56 µm with a 100 µm nozzle. ANSYS Fluent analysis indicated a need for improvements to address overspray and flow deviation.

Keywords Aerosol, Aerosol 3D printing system, Semiconductor, Ink jet printing