Properties of Inkjet and Screen Printed Circuits with Substrate Treatments

Recently, circuit printing technology has been considered as a promising alternative to conventional PCB fabrication, for it can greatly reduce the manufacturing costs. Even though printed circuit has many advantages over typical subtractive technology such as fewer processes, it has some disadvantages. The major problems are low adhesion and poor resolution. Efforts to overcome these problems have been mainly focused on ink developments with a limited success. And surface treatments showed some improvements. Therefore, various plasma treatments and primer coatings on plastic substrates have been tested. Plasma treatments using hydrocarbon gases including methane and propane improved the pattern quality of the inkjet printed circuit, which are further improved upon heating of substrate. On the other hand, there is little effect on the adhesion, which is improved only by a special primer coating. The adhesion of inkjet printed circuit has been increased more than 10 times upon treatment. As for the screen printed circuits, the overall effects are less significant since there is some organic binder in the ink. Nonetheless, the treatment has strong positive effects on pattern quality and adhesion. The adhesion of 1 kgf/cm2, which is comparable with those of the conventional PCB circuits, is possible through primer coating for both screen and inkjet printed circuits. The resulting circuit also showed good thermal, mechanical and electrical properties.