PrintoCent Pilot Factory Inauguration Presents New Coatema Concept

Due to the constant growth in the field of printed electronics, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, the University of Oulu, Oulu University of Applied Sciences and Business Oulu founded PrintoCent in 2009.

This is an innovation centre offering business development and pilot production environment to manufacture components, product demonstrations and solutions based on Printed Intelligence technologies.

On March 13, 2012, the Printocent Pilot Factory was inaugurated in Oulu, Finland. This is also the first time that the new production line build by Coatema was presented. This line includes an inline process on two floors, which enables all needed printing, coating and other steps to manufacture large area printed electronic devices. This allows R2R mass production from lab to fab.

The PrintoCent line, with a footprint of 11 x 4 meters and a height of nearly 5 meters, is equipped with four interchangeable printing units: gravure printing, reverse gravure printing, rotary screen printing and flexography printing. Additional processes such as hot embossing, plasma treatment, lamination, rotary die cut, hot air drying and UV crosslinking as well as an automatic registration are included. The line is operating with a working width of 300 mm and running with an operation speed of up to 30m/min.

The development of this production line was the cornerstone for the concept behind a new line of pilot line coater called Basecoater 3G. These are specifically designed for the production of large area electronics, and the main idea is that there are single units designed in 1.000 mm long sections which are completely enclosed. Because of this modular design, a line can be combined aligned to customer needs.