Xerox develops silver ink to usher in new era of low cost printable electronics

Silicon is the main substrate used for the integrated circuits found in almost all electronic equipment available today. However, silicon could soon be replaced by plastic, film or even fabrics, with Xerox scientists developing a low-temperature silver ink that they say paves the way for the commercialization and low-cost manufacture of printable electronics. This process will offer manufacturers an inexpensive way to add “intelligence” or computing power to a wide range of surfaces to produce things like electronic clothing and cheap games.

Integrated circuits are made up of three components – a semiconductor, a conductor and a dielectric element – and currently are manufactured in costly silicon chip fabricating factories. Printable electronics promises to make the mass production of thin, cheap and flexible electronic circuits a reality, but researchers have been faced with the difficult challenge of developing conductive electronic inks that work in an ordinary, everyday environment. By creating a silver ink to print the conductor, Xerox has developed all three of the materials necessary for printing plastic circuits.

Read more . . .

Related articles by Zemanta

• Xerox develops silver ink for wearable or throwaway electronics (digital.venturebeat.com)
• Xerox Develops Ink To Print Circuits On Nearly Anything [Printable Circuits] (gizmodo.com)
• Xerox hopes to print computing smarts on fabric, plastic (news.cnet.com)

Random Posts:

• Polymer Solar Cell Plant Hooked Up To Grid In Denmark
• When Science Asks, “What if?”
• Cell Phones Become Handheld Tools For Global Development
• PLAYING WITH BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACES
• The collapse of manufacturing

Related posts:

1. Implantable Silicon-Silk electronics could mean LED tattoos
2. Self-healing electronics using carbon nanotube-filled microcapsules
3. Toward ‘Invisible Electronics’ And Transparent Displays
4. Inexpensive Thin Printable Batteries Developed
5. Hidden RFID tags could mean end of bar-codes and lines at the checkout

Tags: cheap games, electronic circuits, electronic clothing, electronic equipment, integrated circuits, mass production, new era, plastic circuits, plastic film, silver ink

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 10:12 am and is filed under Cutting-edge Research, Gaming, Innovation, Project Energy, Shape of Things to Come?, gizmag. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.