I was eagerly waiting for this paper to be out. Now, I do
understand there will be many morons who will say it is not published in
traditionally well respected venues because they try to get a feel of impact
through the venue. It is a pity for those moronic “researchers” to not grasping
the complexity of a scientific/engineering challenge, understanding the
comprehension of a solution, admiring the creativity of the idea, its strength
and future impact. Well, blind worshipping is human nature. That’s easy. That’s
status quo. Difficult is to rise above that. To be the change. So, what change
we made in this paper?
For more than a decade it has been a dream to print electronics on
soft substrates (plastic, paper, textiles, etc.). There are some advances being
made. However, heart and lung of any advanced electronic system are its data
processing and communication units. The performance, functionality and
reliability we need from them, can only be best obtained using silicon (100) or
its sister materials. However, they are all rigid and bulky. Therefore, they
fundamentally limit the objective of flexibility and stretchability (as a
stretched goal). Over the last few years, we have developed and mastered the
process of flexing perfect but rigid silicon (100) [specially bulk, because a
high schooler can even flex a SOI] based electronics. Also, 90% of the
electronics today are made with bulk mono-crystalline silicon (100). However,
rigid materials are flexed by volumetric loss of materials – making them
fragile. Therefore, in this paper we solved three fundamental challenges:
1.
Packaging such fragile but
flexible silicon and otherwise rigid materials based high performance
electronics using 3D printing technology to have decal electronics.
2.
We interconnected such
discrete flexible but fragile electronics. Imagine the difficulty associated
with bonding of large fan out (64 pins or above) based flexible but fragile ICs
on soft substrates. Neither one has sufficient contact space nor strength in
any of the materials to withstand bonding without breaking and/or misalignment.
The smaller the IC, the more difficult the challenge is. [By the way, most
morons do not even understand what is fan out]
3.
Using roll-to-roll
printing, we then screen printed such high performance decal electronics on soft
substrates in high volume.
Well, they all sound interesting but how they change our
life (which is our goal for next 10 years)? Take two examples:
a.
Concept of Internet of Everything
(IoE) lies within the fact that how any object that we see today can be
smartized. Well, using what we showed we can stick decal electronic systems to
them like previous RFID tags but with much more functionalities and
performance.
b.
Today in a traditional
electronic lab setup, we get blind looking for an IC where they all look same. We
show that every IC can have a face, a shape, a size – an identity. Instead of placing
them on breadboard or PCB, one can place them on any substrate and then draw
wire connections as one wants and can see a whole system is built.
Easy to learn, simple to implement electronics will empower
more and more of world population and that’s how we dream of democratizing
electronics. Morons don’t get that – who cares? Because there will be day when
they will be the most beneficiary of the dreams we will realize for all of us.
By name calling them we sometimes exhaust our frustration – please don’t get
offended.
Galo et al. – hearty congratulations!
Decal Electronics:
Printable Packaged With 3D Printing High-Performance Flexible CMOS Electronic
Systems
By
Galo A. Torres
Sevilla, Marlon D. Cordero, Joanna M. Nassar, Amir N. Hanna, Arwa T. Kutbee,
Arpys Arevalo and Muhammad M. Hussain*
For nearly two
decades organic molecular solution-based printing technology has attracted
researchers as a low-cost alternative to print electronics on soft substrates
(polymer, cellulose papers, textiles, etc.). However, due to limited mobility,
thermal instability, and integration complexity, such electronic do not
complement the functionalities performed by rigid and bulky traditional thin
film like silicon, silicon germanium, gallium nitride and other III-V materials
based electronics. Rigidity and bulkiness make the later type of electronics
unsuitable for printing on soft substrates. Therefore, here we show,
comprehensive integration strategy by using complementary metal oxide
semiconductor (CMOS) based technology to flex thin film based electronics on
silicon, and then to package them using 3D printing and finally print such
packaged decal electronics on soft substrates enabling high volume
manufacturing. Up to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time such
packaged decal high-performance silicon-based electronics are shown in
printable fashion.