Press Releases

CAMBRIDGE, UK — Having been largely confined to the realm of academia for many years, metamaterials are now set for commercialization in several major applications. The IDTechEx report, “Metamaterials Markets 2023-2043: Optical and Radio-Frequency”, explores the opportunities within this emerging materials technology.

A particularly significant emergent application of electromagnetic metamaterials is in supporting the deployment of high-frequency telecommunications, such as millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G and even THz. High frequencies can allow for faster data transfer and hence improved user experience. However, at high frequencies, there is a severe loss in energy across long distances. These problems can be further exacerbated by obstacles, as is common in urban environments. As a result, a low-power device that can facilitate the delivery of high-frequency signals in crowded environments is required.

Metamaterials offer a potential solution through enabling the development of “Reconfigurable Intelligent Systems”, or RIS for short. These systems integrate electronic components to reflect radio waves in specific, configurable directions – enabling signals to be reflected around obstacles, thus overcoming the issues of signal blockage. RIS can potentially even track users autonomously for directed communications, allowing for greater signal quality and improved security by reducing the likelihood of connection by unauthorized users. These advantages that RIS propose have drawn attention from telecom providers such as Verizon, who partnered with RIS-developer Pivotal Commware in 2020 to deploy the latter’s products in supporting mmWave 5G deployment.

If beaming a signal in a specific direction were the only goal, then this could be achieved using conventional relay stations. However, RIS offers two crucial advantages – namely, their low power use and small form factor. This allows them to be deployed at scale in areas where a conventional relay station would not fit, such as above traffic lights at crowded junctions or under a ceiling in a stadium, significantly improving 5G coverage in crowded environments. The requirement of low power also greatly reduces the costs of operating a widespread network, and it may even be possible to power some RIS devices from built-in energy harvesting systems such as solar photovoltaics.

Deployment at scale for RIS would only be possible if each device could be produced affordably – as such, the materials used and manufacturing process are of key concern. RIS developers, such as Greenerwave and Pivotal Commware, have thus designed their devices to be compatible with conventional PCB components and manufacturing methods. That these rely on well-founded industries ensures manufacturing can be carried out affordably at scale.

The devices discussed above incorporated electronic components to actively steer signals; however, electronic components are not a prerequisite. A feature central to metamaterials is their ability to reflect at otherwise unachievable angles, and so may conceivably be deployed as “mirrors” to passively reflect signals around corners. Transparent metamaterial sheets capable of this functionality pose a significant materials opportunity, as they may be integrable with existing structures such as windows or walls. An example of such a product is demonstrated by Meta Materials Inc and Sekisui, who entered a collaboration in 2021 to develop a transparent conductive reflector film that can reflect signals for improved mmWave signal coverage.

Thus far, only reflection has been considered – however, metamaterials can also enhance high-frequency telecommunications through improving the transmission of signals through windows. Low-emissivity glass contains a very thin transparent layer of metal oxide to block UV and infrared radiation; such glass can be found in the windows of regular households, businesses, and in the windshields of cars. It is becoming increasingly common for consumers to choose low-emissivity glass in order to improve energy efficiency and minimize utility bills. However, these also have the effect of blocking wireless communication signals and thus causes poor phone reception. By incorporating a transparent metamaterial film, the strength of high-frequency signals within buildings can be greatly enhanced. Indeed, such high-frequency signals experience particularly significant attenuation and may necessitate metamaterials for any viable indoor phone reception.

5G has been commercialized since 2019, but to date, mmWave has been impeded by the high costs necessary for implementation. The short range of mmWave requires large numbers of base stations to be installed, thus making it expensive and unattractive. However, metamaterial-based RIS may be set to revolutionize the market by enabling affordable, widespread coverage, paving the way for future high-frequency telecommunications. In the IDTechEx report “Metamaterials Markets 2023-2043: Optical and Radio-Frequency”, the potential of metamaterial-based RIS is analyzed in depth to assess the potential for this emergent technology in supporting high-frequency telecommunications.

HANAU, GERMANY — Heraeus Electronics will exhibit at the 2023 IPC APEX EXPO, scheduled to take place Jan. 24-26, 2023 at the San Diego Convention Center in California. The company will showcase three innovative products designed to meet current and future SMT challenges. New solutions are needed to meet the increasing demands for miniaturization, reliability and TCO challenges.

Heraeus has answered the industry’s need, and will introduce the next evolution of Solder Paste to address these challenges in Booth #2419 during the IPC APEX EXPO.

The all-new paste system is a high reliability, high performance paste system with a competitive TCO offering. Based on proven experience of Heraeus Electronics, the new paste system allows a wide process window, enabling soldering in air with low defects. Additionally, it is designed to offer an optimized formulation for lower material costs. Moreover, the company will discuss its proven Innolot Solder Paste and mAgic® DA320 Sinter Paste.

Heraeus’ SMT 650 Innolot solder paste achieves a consistently high surface insulation resistance that prevents electrochemical migration. The combination of the flux system with Innolot alloy delivers superior reliability— especially in miniaturized systems in the automotive industry. In addition, the developed flux system can also be combined with SAC305.

mAgic® DA320 is a high shear strength, non-pressure dispensing sinter paste for die attach of power applications. With high thermal conductivity, it offers fast sintering at low application temperatures from 200°C and above to form quality interconnections.

For more information about the company’s innovative materials portfolio, visit Heraeus experts in Booth #2419 during the IPC APEX EXPO.

To learn more about Heraeus Electronics, visit www.heraeus-electronics.com

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — SMTA announced that the program is finalized for the 27th Annual Pan Pacific Microelectronics Symposium. The event will take place from January 30 to February 1, 2023 at the Sheraton Kauai Resort on Kauai, Hawaii. The Pan Pacific Microelectronics Symposium promotes international technical interchange and provides a premier forum for networking among microelectronics professionals and business leaders throughout the world.

In addition to several inspiring keynotes, this program features ground-breaking research from global experts on Advanced Packaging, Advanced Processing, Advanced Materials, Business Strategies, Reliability and more.

On the afternoon of Monday, January 30, a plenary session will kick off the event followed by a Keynote presentation by Eric R. Fossum, Ph.D., Dartmouth College, titled “Cultivating a Culture of Innovation Should be Easy in a University, Right?”

On Tuesday, January 31, Dan Feliciano, OpEx 90, will deliver the keynote lunch talk on “Benford's Law: Helping to Minimize Financial Fraud, Among Other Things.”

On Wednesday, February 1, Rolf Aschenbrenner, Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration, will give the lunch keynote on “Advanced Packaging Technologies - Key Enablers for Electronic Systems.”

To conclude the symposium, Shintaro Yamamichi, IBM Japan, will provide his keynote presentation about “Neural Networks and Quantum Computing.”

View the complete program and register at: https://www.smta.org/panpac. Promotional packages are available for companies wishing to gain exposure for their products and services. Please contact Karlie Severinson, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or +1-952-920-7682, with questions.

CAMBRIDGE, UK — How can advanced functional materials such as conductive inks be developed more quickly? Anyone who has spent time in a laboratory knows that material development can be a laborious process. By utilizing an AI platform to optimize experimental parameter selection and reduce the number of iterative steps, materials informatics promises much more efficient material development pathways.

In a recent press release, particle-free conductive ink company Electroninks announced a partnership with material informatics company Citrine to develop a new conductive ink with reduced resistivity (3.2 µohm cm-1) and curing temperature (80°C). This is a more desirable set of properties than existing materials and should facilitate adoption for printed electronics and especially electromagnetic (EMI) shielding. The collaboration clearly illustrates the benefits that material informatics (MI) can provide to expedite improvements in the properties of pre-existing materials with clear industrial applications.

What Is Particle Free Conductive Ink?

Conductive inks are a longstanding technology that underpins printed electronics. Conventional conductive inks comprise micron-scale metal flakes suspended in a solvent with polymeric binders and are widely used in applications ranging from solar panel busbars to printed/flexible sensors.

In contrast, as the name suggests, particle-free conductive inks do not contain any metal particles. Instead, a transparent solution of solvated metal salt is chemically converted in situ to produce a metal. The chemical reaction is induced by heat, light, or plasma, resulting in a smooth conductive metal layer. This particle approach brings three main advantages: high conductivity, low viscosity, and a smooth surface.

What Is Materials Informatics?

Material informatics describes the utilization of data-driven methods, including machine learning, in materials R&D. It can help design new materials or select the right material for a given application, optimize material processing, and more. While this can take various forms, including literature/patent analysis and sourcing data via computational chemistry, one approach (and that used to develop particle-free inks) is to facilitate experimental design and parameter selection via supervised learning algorithms.

MI can accelerate the 'forward' direction of innovation (properties are realized for an input material), but the idealized solution is to enable the 'inverse' direction (materials are designed given desired properties). If integrated correctly, MI will become a set of enabling technologies accelerating scientists' R&D processes while making use of their domain expertise.

Compelling Advantages

Particle-free inks typically have higher conductivities than their more conventional particle-based counterparts. Since the metal is formed in situ, and the proportion of binder materials can be very low, conductivity can be as high as 80% of the bulk metal. This, of course, means that less ink can be used, with the additional benefit of there being less solvent to evaporate away during curing.

The low viscosity of particle-free conductive inks reduces the risk of nozzle clogging, making them ideally suited to aerosol and electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing. Both of these techniques have nozzles with very small apertures and are capable of printing at lines as thin as 10 and 1 um, respectively. Depositing lines this narrow enables printed electronics to compete with subtractive methods such as photolithography and thus be used for semiconductor packaging.

Additionally, the smooth surface produced by particle-free conductive inks makes them highly desirable for radio frequency (RF) applications since, as signal frequency increases, surface roughness rather than bulk conductivity increasingly dominates impedance.

Key Questions Answered

If you would like to learn more about the opportunities enabled by the many types of conductive inks and material informatics, IDTechEx offers comprehensive and recently updated market research reports on both fields. These draw on company interviews and conference attendance to provide market forecasts, technology analysis, player profiles, investment details, roadmaps, company lists, and more, giving a clear picture of the technological and commercial landscape. To find out more about IDTechEx's technical and commercial analysis across a wide range of emerging technologies, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

WALTHAM, MA — Nano Dimension Ltd. (Nasdaq: NNDM, “Nano Dimension” or the “Company”), a leading supplier of Additively Manufactured Electronics (“AME”) and multi-dimensional polymer, metal & ceramic Additive Manufacturing (“AM”) 3D printers, announced today that it has received a purchase order from a European army, for a DragonFly IV, the leading Additive Manufacturing Electronics (AME) 3D-printer.

This customer is the tenth western defense agency to become a user of Nano Dimension’s high performance additive manufacturing systems. For reasons of national security, Nano Dimension cannot reveal the name of the country it is from, but this is clearly a continuation of the company’s success in providing leading technology to those who need it most. This defense agency, and others like it, which include national armies, navies, air forces, and governmental intelligence agencies, rely on the DragonFly IV® to advance innovation in a way that other manufacturing technologies of electronics manufacturing cannot achieve.

The DragonFly IV® system and specialized materials serve cross-industry High-Performance-Electronic-Devices (Hi-PEDs®) fabrication needs by simultaneously depositing proprietary conductive and dielectric substances, while integrating in-situ capacitors, antennas, coils, transformers, and electromechanical components. The outcomes are Hi-PEDs® which are critical enablers of autonomous intelligent drones, cars, satellites, smartphones, and in vivo medical devices. In addition, these products enable iterative development, IP safety, fast time-to-market, and device performance gains.

"I am very excited that another European army is investing in the design and production of 3D electronics, to shorten its development cycles and bring to life innovative ideas which could not have been done before,” commented Stephan Krause, Vice President of EMEA Sales for Nano Dimension.

Mr. Yoav Stern, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Nano Dimension, added: “Engaging this new customer is exciting for us. It proves, yet again, how irreplaceable and essential our 3D printing technologies and materials are. There are perhaps no greater requirements for innovation than what defense agencies command, and we are proud to be chosen as the supplier of such unique solutions. After many years of experience with advanced technologies in the Air Force, I know that leading edge products which are adopted initially by defense forces, traditionally end up creating very large size commercial markets as well.”

SANTA ANA, CA — TTM Technologies, Inc. and Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a Raytheon Technologies business, have reached a multi-year agreement to provide radio frequency assemblies, electronic hardware, and printed circuit boards for the SPY-6 family of radars. The agreement has the potential to reach $500 million over five years.

"SPY-6 provides the unparalleled capability to the U.S. Navy and will be on 40 ships of seven different classes by 2030," said Kim Ernzen, President of Naval Power at RMD. "Agreements like these ensure we continue to meet the demands of our customers."

TTM designs and manufactures the Beam Form Network (BFN) along with PCBs, and specialized assemblies for the SPY-6 family of radars. This type of multi-year commitment for supply enables TTM and its supply chain partners to increase value to the end customer and transform the way TTM's supplier partners conduct business, creating efficiencies throughout the supply chain.

"This significant agreement further strengthens our partnership with RMD and positions both companies for future business opportunities where technology and innovation are key points of focus for the ultimate end user, the U. S. Government," said Catherine Gridley, Executive Vice President and President, Aerospace & Defense/ Specialty Business Unit.

When compared to legacy radars, SPY-6 brings new capabilities to the surface fleet, such as advanced electronic warfare protection and enhanced detection abilities. SPY-6 radar installation is complete on the Navy's first Flight III destroyer, the USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125), which is scheduled to be operational in 2024.

Page 44 of 290

Subcategories