VIEWPOINT 2021: Joseph Fjelstad, President and Founder, Verdant Electronics

Joseph Fjelstad, President and Founder, Verdant Electronics

Printing is demonstrably one of mankind's earliest innovations. Evidence can be found on the walls of the Chauvet cave in France where early humans demonstrated their grasp of both stencil printing (spraying pigment from their mouths against the backs of their hands flattened on cave walls) and transfer printing (by placing their hands into a liquid pigment and subsequentially placing their hands against the cave walls). By these inspired actions, they left for all who followed to see, those outlines and direct printed impressions of their hands.

Fast forward 32,000 years and printing technology has today advanced into the 3rd dimension in ways few could have envisioned just a relatively few years ago. The not-too-distant future appears poised to bring manufacturing into the home of every individual who desires (and can afford) to do so. Chris Anderson in his prescient 2006 book The Long Tail stated that in the future a "desktop factory" printer would be able to turn data bits into the atoms of a product in the comfort of one’s home.

In the realm of electronics, screen printing technology has been applied to the creation of conductors for more than seven decades but advances in materials has allowed for the integration of more function into the circuits printed including resistors, capacitors, inductors and even transistors. Current generation printers are capable of printing extremely fine circuit features. Three dimensional objects, impossible to build using traditional manufacturing methods are today commonplace.

The integration of these two important forms of printing technology are merging. Following Anderson's general notion, Verdant Electronics proposed shortly after publication of The Long Tail the integration of packaged devices into printed substrates whereon sequentially printed dielectrics and conductors allow for creation of a completely solder alloy free electronic (SAFE) assembly. Demonstration of such an assembly is anticipated in 2021.

Joseph Fjelstad, President and Founder
Verdant Electronics
http://www.verdantelectronics.com

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