Dynamic Adaptation of Interconnections in Inkjet Printed Electronics

Printed electronics is a new technology for manufacturing miniature electronics modules. The basic principle is that the integrated circuits are molded into a background material such that the connectors are left visible on top. After the background substrate has hardened, the wiring is printed on top of the module using conductive ink. The technology allows flexible manufacturing of significantly smaller modules using wide range of new materials. Typically the components and their connection points are slightly displaced when the background material hardens. This paper proposes a method for adjusting the wiring to match the displaced components. Experiments show that correction reduces the number of false or missing connections significantly thus providing necessary yield improvement for the manufacturing process.