A SCALABLE ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY FOR LARGE AREA PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS

The goal of this Phase I project is to evaluate and demonstrate the feasibility of key innovations required to develop a scalable additive manufacturing technology for large area, multiple layer printed circuit boards based on our proprietary confined electro-plating 3D printer to fabricate high conductivity copper features at room temperature. The Phase I work plan includes the following objectives: (1) Development of confined electro-plating 3D printer technology (hardware and software) for large, thin, multiple-layer, printed circuit boards (PCBs) with plated through holes with dimensions 2m x 2m and thicknesses from 100-200 microns; (2) Characterization of adhesion, electrical and mechanical properties of 3D printed metal features of copper, gold, titanium, chromium, platinum, indium, tin and lead; (3) Integration of Nd:YAG laser to add plated via holes, in a reliable robust way, to large rolls of metallized mylar, kapton and glass epoxy composites; (4) Development of lamination techniques to layer the 3D metallized kapton and mylar sheets together to form a prototype PCB for the 1.2 meter AT-TPC detector at NSCL at MSU; (5) Investigation of fabrication of improved GEM cells using the proposed 3D printing; (6) Concurrent design and assembly of a 3D printer for handling 2 meter wide rolls. The project team includes Prof. Majid Minary at University of Texas at Dallas and Dr. Wolfgang Mittig at NSCL at Michigan State University.