Mass Production of Printed Electronics

Memory devices happen to be an array of electronics functions that have displays, sensors, and logic.  In last few years, all of these have undergone a lot of changes which signifies better integration and enhanced performance. Ou regular lives are embedded with many such devices that have lower performance, for example, the electronic functions implemented over the computer chips present in your debit or credit cards, smart tags, and several other in-home appliances. As the memory devices are becoming more and more flexible, the days of their below level performance are far behind now. But ease of their integration and fabrication is getting better and better. But now, a researchers team from Munich University of Applied Sciences in association with INRS-EMT from Canada brought things to a better end. 

 

A doctoral student working at the INRS-EMT in the Laboratory for Microsystems Technology from Munich University of Applied Sciences, explains, “In any kind of memory, the basic memory unit must be switchable between two states that represent one bit, or ‘0’ or ‘1’. For ReRAM devices, these two states are defined by the resistance of the memory cell. For the conductive bridge random access memory (CB-RAM) used by the group, ‘0’ is “a high-resistance state represented by the high resistance of an insulating spin-on glass, which separates a conducting polymer electrode from a silver electrode. The ‘1’ is a low-resistance state, which is given by a metallic filament that grows into the spin-on glass and provides a reversible short-circuit between the two electrodes.” 

 

 

Huber further adds that “Apart from printing colors, we use functional inks to deposit a capacitor structure—conductor-insulator-conductor—with materials that have already been deployed in cleanroom processes. This process is identical to that of an office inkjet printer, with an additional option of fine-tuning the droplet size and heating the target material.” The concept of CB-RAM is already well-known and the leading members of this team had already worked on this project. Sp, Christina Schindler from Munich University of Applied Sciences, adds, “We not only demonstrated that a complete additive process was possible but also that the performance parameters are comparable to cleanroom-fabricated devices. The biggest technological appeal is the mechanical flexibility of our memory tiles, and the fact that all materials required for processing are commercially available.”