A NOVEL THICK-FILM TECHNIQUE, GRAVURE OFFSET PRINTING, FOR THE REALIZATION OF FINE-LINE SENSOR STRUCTURES

Gravure offset printing is a novel thick-film printing technique which offers the possibility of printing conductor lines that are narrow co mpared with those obtained by screen-printing technology. Therefore by using gravure offset printing, denser electronic packaging and sensor structures are feasible. This paper reports the line width and thickn ess of conductors on alumina substrates produced by the gravure offset technique. As an application example, a multilayer pressure sensor st ructure consisting of 64 sensors, each 2 X 2 mm2 in size, in a matrix is described. This structure is composed of two electrode layers with a piezoceramic layer between them. The narrowest line width of the ele ctrodes is 50 mum. One of the most important benefits of this techniqu e is that it offers the possibility of three-dimensional printing.