DuPont MCM Advances PE Development Efforts by Employing NovaCentrix PulseForge Tools

DuPont Microcircuit Materials (MCM), part of DuPont Electronics & Communications, has announced an arrangement with NovaCentrix regarding MCM’s use of NovaCentrix’s PulseForge tools which MCM anticipates will further its development of state-of-the-art materials and processing technology, as DuPont continues to expand its portfolio of functional inks for the growing printed electronics industry.

“Industry analysts predict there will be many emerging applications in printed electronics, such as flexible displays and smart packaging, that will benefit from low temperature processing and dramatically higher speed production, and the NovaCentrix PulseForge tools utilizing photonic curing are an excellent fit for the types of materials we are currently developing and testing in these areas,” said Scott Gordon, market segment manager — DuPont Microcircuit Materials. “Through our use of this advanced processing equipment, we feel we can accelerate time to market for new offerings and address our customers’ critical needs better and faster.”

DuPont anticipates that the capability of the PulseForge tools, combined with proprietary functional inks designed and developed by DuPont, will deliver low resistivity fine line conductors with high adhesion that can enable highly differentiated ink offerings with lower cost of ownership for printed electronics producers. DuPont expects to both characterize portions of its existing product offering and develop new high-performance, cost-effective products, to ensure its printed electronics customers have an even wider range of products available.

“NovaCentrix is a leader in printed electronics manufacturing technologies, and DuPont Microcircuit Materials is a leader in commercial inks and paste materials – our strengths and shared commitment to innovation complement one another,” said Stan Farnsworth, vice president of marketing – NovaCentrix. “The PulseForge tools are intended to enable new materials and applications through patented photonic curing capabilities as well as advanced design features. We’re very pleased that DuPontwill be utilizing the NovaCentrix PulseForge 3200 system, which we anticipate will enable new developments for the printed electronics industry.”

DuPont MCM is an established high-volume supplier of electronic inks and pastes and has developed a broad range of printed electronic materials commercially available today. This growing range of DuPont MCM functional inks is used for forming conductive traces, capacitor and resistor elements, and dielectric and encapsulating layers that are compatible with many substrate surfaces including polyester, glass and ceramic.

The company recently announced another key collaboration with Holst Centre to advance technology specifically in the area of printed structures on flexible substrates, which has application in flexible display, RFID, lighting, biomedical and organic photovoltaic (OPV) markets.