Symposium Focus
Ink jet is being considered for a wide range of manufacturing applications within the electronics, bio-medical, automotive, product decoration industries, and more.  Compared to current manufacturing processes such as injection moulding, casting, plating, coating, photolithography and etching or printing processes such as offset, screen and pad printing, ink jet promises significant improvements in production flexibility, the ability to integrate outsourced processes directly into manufacturing lines, dispense a wide range of decorative or functional materials, work directly on components or parts or on much cheaper substrates than possible with current technologies.

Monday 18^th April, 2005

1:00 - 2:00 p.m. Registration

2:00 p.m.      Opening session 

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
Al Keene, President, Information Management Institute, Inc., Carrabassett Valley, Maine, USA

OPENING SESSION - ELECTRONICS & DISPLAYS

THE COMMERCIALISATION OF INK JET TECHNOLOGY IN THE ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY
Paul Patterson, General Manager, IJIA Business Development, Seiko Epson Corporation, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA

• Common perceptions of ink jet printing for electronics & displays
• Limitations of ink jet - the picolitre barrier
• Commercialisation requirements for the electronics industry
• Examples of state of the art
- Ink jet printed 20 layer printed circuit board
• Future applications and scenarios

THE STATUS OF INK JET PRINTED OLED DISPLAYS
Dr Julian Carter, Print Technology Manager, Technology Development Centre, Cambridge Display Technology, Cambridge, UK

• What’s so special about OLED?
• Why printing?
• Why in particular ink jet?
• Special challenges
• Current status - technology
• Current status – commercialisation
• Looking ahead

CHALLENGES OF INDUSTRIAL INK JET MANUFACTURING FOR DISPLAY APPLICATIONS
Paul van Roosmalen, Manager Inkjet Technology, Philips PolyLED, Heerlen, The Netherlands

• Introduction to PLED
• Manufacturing process for full colour PLED displays
• Ink jet printing as thin film deposition technique
• Philips PolyLED facility
• Requirements for ink jet print equipment
• Print head performance and sustainability
• PLED “inks”
• Technology roadmap
• Products and plans for mass production


DIRECT WRITING FOR PCB’s – WHY AM I WAITING?
A USER'S VIEW OF INK JET AND DIGITAL MANUFACTURING OF PCBs
Steve Jones, President, Circatex Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne. UK

• Impact of the Far East on global high volume electronics manufacture and the development of a European manufacturing strategy
- Globally 75% of PCBs manufactured in Far East
- Since 2000 closure of 50-60% of manufacturing facilities in Europe & US
- Korea produces more PCBs than Western Europe
- 40% of high tech designs produced in Europe
- Loss of ability to service design groups with prototypes and pre-production
• Problems with analogue photolithographic methods
- Artworks are expensive, take time to produce and are unstable with environmental changes
- Most processes use batch processing
• Initial trials with Laser Direct Imaging & ink jet
- 50% can be removed from the process time
- Improved pollution and waste management
- A totally digital process for all manufacturing processes
• Factory of the future
- New production equipment
- Sequential manufacturing processes


THE MOMENT OF TRUTH FOR INK JET AS A MANUFACTURING TOOL
John Corrall, Engineering & Production Director and Dr Alan Hudd, President & CTO, Xennia Technology Ltd, Royston, UK

• Types of ink chemistry required for industrial or manufacturing processes
• Where ink testing meets ink jet integration
• Getting ink jet to work for real
• Keeping it working for the customer
• Manufacturing processes and ink jet

6:00 p.m. Reception

Tuesday 19th April, 2005

9:00 a.m.

SESSION 2 – INDUSTRIAL PRINTING, DECORATION & PRODUCTION

INK JET AS A MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
Martin Schoeppler, VP Strategic Business Development, Spectra, Inc., Santa Clara CA, USA

• Today’s successes with ink jet technology
- Maturity level description from an ink jet manufacturer point of view
• New near-term applications
- Challenges, requirements, upcoming improvements
• Longer term prospective and challenges
- New applications
- Technology hurdles for ink jet
• Conclusion and summary

IS THAT REAL WOOD? INK JET APPLIED TO NICHE INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS
Bill Baxter, Managing Director, Inca Digital Printers Ltd, Cambridge, UK

• Printing on to moulded doors using piezo inkjet:
- how do you make money doing that?
- practical issues
- protecting the method
- building a relationship with the manufacturer
• What else would work with this model?
- how everyone should benefit
- pcbs?
- short run packaging?
- tiles?
- automotive dashboard displays?
- Other applications?

ADVANCES IN UV-CURABLE INK JET
Mario K. Carluccio, Manager, Business Development, Aellora™ Digital, Keene, NH, USA

• Liquid versus hybrid UVC jetting chemistries
• Acrylate versus cationic UVC chemistries
• Jetting white pigment and other heavy particles
• High resolution digital printing/dispensing
• Recommended evaluation process steps

CERAMIC DECAL COVER COATING USING DIGICOAT
Dave Cartlidge, Senior Technologist, CERAM Research Ltd, Stoke-on-Trent, UK

• Why is the Digicoat process required?
• Technical challenges
• Printhead development
• Removal of VOC’s
• Cost benefit

SPIRAL GROWTH MANUFACTURING (SGM) - A CONTINUOUS ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY FOR PHARMACEUTICAL APPLICATIONS
Chris Sutcliffe, Department of Engineering, MSERC, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

• Development of a new innovative powder-based rapid prototyping technique
• Spiral Growth Manufacturing
- Ink jet printheads deposit binding agent
- Powder bed revolves allowing simultaneous powder deposition and processing
- Platform spirals downwards
• Manufacturing oral controlled release drugs
- Application of different polymer binders onto inert base powders
- Creates 3D structures with varying solubility in different spatial regions
- Development and testing of experimental SGM machine

1:00 p.m. Lunch

2:00 p.m.

SESSION 3 – BIO AND MEDICAL APPLICATIONS

HARNESSING INK JET FOR THE BIOTECH AND PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES
Robert Harvey, Business Development Manager, Xaar plc, Cambridge, UK

• Overview and status of ink jet for bio and pharmaceutical applications
• Robotic sample handling & automatic analysis key to the future for molecular analysis
- Pioneered for the human genome sequencing project
- Ink jet reduces costs & accelerates progress
• Dispensing applications for ink jet
- Live cells
- Biologically sensitive compounds
• Building structured macroscopic-scale structures from layers of fluids
- Bone implants
- Wound dressings built from the recipient’s own cells
- Artificial organs for testing novel drugs
• Microencapsulated time release drug cocktails tailored to each patient

HIGH VOLUME MANUFACTURING OF STRUCTURAL PARTS USING INK-JET TECHNOLOGY
Urban Harrysson, Managing Director, fcubic ab, Kullavik, Sweden

• 15 years of 3D mechanical CAD systems
- Enabling new production technologies
- Layered manufacturing one of them
• 3D System first to release a laser based system in 1988
• Other systems introduced, some using ink jet devices
• Development of rapid prototyping market and current status
• Why not use these methods for series production?
• Requirements for high volume manufacturing
- Process
- Equipment
- Applications

Applications for Ink Jet Printing in Biology and Medicine: Progress Towards Organ Printing
Brian Derby, School of Materials, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

• Increasing interest in ink jet as a medical research tool
• The ability to precisely position pl volumes of liquid has a number of potential applications in tissue engineering
- Dispensation of bioactive chemicals, e.g. adhesion and growth factors, can be used for the directed growth of nerve cells
- Whole cells have been dispensed by three groups of workers without excessive damage to their function.
• This leads to the possible construction of biologically active structures from cells and other materials with applications in:
- Fundamental cell biology,
- Cell arrays for toxicity testing,
- Bioreactors and cell factories for pharmaceutical and tissue (cartilage) manufacture
- External assist devices (e.g. next generation dialysis, and even complete organs for implantation

THREE-DIMENSIONAL PRINTING OF SAND MOULDS AND BONE IMPLANTS
Ralph Pelzer, Lehrstuhl für Feingerätebau und Mikrotechnik, Technische Universität München,
Garching, Germany

• Principle of the three dimensional printing process and commercial systems
• Printing complex sand moulds and cores for the casting process
- Process steps in comparison with conventional methods
- Materials
- Equipment and technical data
- Applications reducing cost and time
• Manufacturing of patient individual, absorbable bone implants
- Bone structures, bone remodelling and healing
- Demands on bone implants
- Hydroxyapatit, a bone like material
- Experimental setup of the bone printer and printed results
• Future of the 3D-printing


OVERCOMING THE OBSTACLES – HOW TO MOVE INK JET INTO MANUFACTURING
Panel discussion led by Rob Harvey and Martin Schoeppler


6:00 p.m. Adjournment