GAIKER LEADS A PROJECT THAT WILL DEVELOP NEW MATERIALS FOR ADDITIVE ELECTRONICS BY 3D PRINTING

In order to develop new materials for additive electronics by 3D printing, the IDEA project emerged, led by the Gaiker Technology Center, member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance, BRTA. The main objective of this research is to develop new materials with electronic and magnetic properties that enable new 3D electronics, made using additive manufacturing processes.

These new materials, which will be developed in the first two years of the R&D strategy in new materials for additive electronics 2019-2030 that has been defined in IDEA, will allow to eliminate the rigidity of the current design and the 2D space of electronic boards, reduce costs by reducing current assembly processes, integrate electronics in 3D plastic products and promote new hybrid additive manufacturing technologies, which allow from a single process to the complete integration of 3D electronics in the final product.

IDEA seeks to obtain real, effective, sustainable and profitable solutions, according to the new advanced manufacturing processes, and to equip the industrial fabric with its own materials and technologies, which avoid current technological dependence and open new opportunities in the field of development of devices (new microelectronics) and structural concepts for the development of new machines and manufacturing processes.

This ELKARTEK project, financed by the Basque Government and coordinated by the GAIKER Technology Center, will be in charge of designing and printing new organic materials, a consortium made up of various technology centers and universities in the Basque Country. This center will develop, on the one hand, new polymer-based materials from commodity-type matrices, such as polymers of recycled and natural origin, which are currently in the experimental development phase, both in their production and their suitability to apply them in different additive manufacturing technologies and achievement of electronic properties, and on the other hand, to develop new polymer additive printing processes, adapting current filament printing processes to the demands of the newly developed materials.