RISE, Research Institutes of Sweden, Sweden
The plywood printed circuit board provides an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional circuit boards.
Using printing technologies in place of hazardous etching conditions, the plywood PCB is more sustainable as it can be recycled or composible.
This demonstrator could be integrated into smart buildings or furniture applications for sensing the indoor environment or wood products.
Functionality
The wood PCB has been created by first lasering aligment marks through the wood. These marks are then used for screen printing 3 layers on each side of the wood. Within the screen printing design are vias to connect the silver circuits and mounting pads for the silicon mounted components.
The printed sheets of plywood are aligned and vias lasered through the wood to expose the bottom side of the silver (silver material cannot be drilled with this laser).
The vias are filled with silver and cured to complete the connection.
An experimental encapsulated chip from infineon and a standard humditiy surface mounted chip is mounted using machine pick and place technology.
Once the chips are programmed, the plywood PCB can function with any smart phone using Near Field Communication to read out the Humidity and Temperature.
Benefits of the project
The Motivation behind the plywood PCB is to create more sustainable electronic internet of thing devices. Devices such as these can be intregrated into funiture, flooring etc. and give information on the quality of the air and other important parameters of the building material and/or space.
The plywood PCB benefits society by providing a more sustainable alternative for IoT technologies.
Target Industry
- Smart Building and Furniture
Organic & Printed Components
- Conductive path
- Interconnection
- Printed antenna
- Printed dieelectric / insulator
- Printed electrode
Classical Components
- Commercial 3V thin form battery
- Custom design encapsulated chip from Infineon technologies
- Humidity sensor standard SMD component.