Samsung Electro-Mechanics launching industrial inkjet business

Samsung Electro-Mechanics (SEMCO hereafter, http://www.samsung.com ) has successfully developed industrial inkjet printheads and copper ink, and now has active endorsement of the inkjet business as a new growth opportunity. The company's parent Samsung is a leader in displays, including OLED and e-paper, and has significant work on thin film transistors. Now it enters inkjet printing and material manufacture.

 

The Industrial inkjet printer is capable of dispensing not only conventional dye based inks but also inks made out of materials such as copper, gold, and silver as well as ceramic and polymer on to conventional processing substrates, films, textile, and displays. Applications include industrial graphics, display, solar cells etc.

 

In 2008 SEMCO became the first Korean company to enter the industrial inkjet printhead market and has developed nano-copper ink - the first of its kind in the world, for applications in printed circuit boards (PCB).

 

The industrial inkjet printer is capable of producing electronic circuitry by printing, and for this, the industrial inkjet printer is referred as an electronic ink printer. In order to realize fine metal line width, the printhead is required to have precise features with high reliability. Whereas existing industrial inkjet printheads are commonly equipped with 128 nozzles, inkjet printhead from SEMCO has 256 nozzles fabricated with Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) technology and is capable of ejecting droplets as small as one pico-liter.

 

SEMCO successfully developed nano-copper (Cu) ink in the hope of reducing production cost of printed electronics currently depending on gold (Au) and silver (Ag) inks for electronic circuitry. Synthesizing copper nano-particles is more difficult compared to other metals because copper is prone to oxidation dropping the conductivity; however, SEMCO has overcome this challenge and developed a distinguished process method starting from the raw materials to elaborate synthesis resulting in a nano-copper ink product.

 

Adopting inkjet printing technology on PCB processing, conventional 7 process steps consisting of surface treatment, lamination, masking, exposure, etching, and stripping can be reduced into two steps consisting just of printing and sintering.

 

Advantages of adopting inkjet printing technology are reduced production costs due to simplification of fabrication processes, economical use of precious materials as only the required pattern is printed, and environmently friendly with the elimination of using toxic chemicals. For these reasons, demand of inkjet printing systems from the related industries has been rising; however, there are only a handful of manufacturers producing industrial inkjet printheads to meet the demands.

 

SEMCO with the registered brand name "SemJet®" for its inkjet business plans to produce industrial inkjet printhead and nano-inks for applications in semiconductor, LCD, OLED, and Solar Cells.

 

SEMCO plans to enhance current IT based business structures, expand business areas to Energy, Environment, and Bio-related, and under these strategies is actively building up the inkjet business for industrial applications as the future growth engine.

 

 

SEMCO will be presenting exclusively on this and exhibiting at Printed Electronics Europe 2009  in Dresden, Germany.