3D manufacturing
3D制造业
Print me a phone
给我印一部手机
New techniques to embed electronics into products
将电子嵌入到商品的新技术
Jul 28th 2012 | from the print edition
OPEN up any electronic device and inside there are circuit boards, components and bundles of wire. Assembling these items into a product like a phone can be a tedious, labour-intensive process, and one that is often subcontracted to low-wage countries such as China. Now new ways of printing electronics in three dimensions are being developed. This makes it possible to incorporate circuitry and components into the material the product is made from, such as the phone’s case. It could revolutionise the way electronic goods are made.
随便打开一个电子设备，你会发现 里面有集成电路、电子组件和成捆的导线。把这些部件组装成一个 诸如手机的设备是一件枯燥乏味且需要密集劳动的过程，这样的工作往往会转包给如中国这样工资水平较低国家的代工厂。如今，一种新的三维印刷电子技术正在发展。①该技术能够像手机 外壳那样将电路和电子器件集成到组成产品的原材料上。这将会革命性地改变电子产品生产的过程。
Printing electronics is not new; screen printing, lithography, inkjet and other processes have long been used to manufacture circuit boards and components. But the technologies are improving rapidly and now allow electronics to be printed on a greater variety of surfaces. In the latest developments, electronics printing is being combined with “additive manufacturing”, which uses machines popularly known as 3D printers to build solid objects out of material, one layer at a time.
印刷电子并不是一项新技术；丝网印刷、平板印刷、喷墨打印以及其他打印技术早就被应用到制造电路板和电子器件的过程中。但是，这些技术在迅猛发展，如今能够将电子打印到多种多样材料的表面上。最新的进展当中，印刷电子技术被应用在积制造技术中，后者使用俗称3D打印机的设备通过一层层的累积材料来制造产品。②
Inking the changes
记录这些正在发生的变化
Printing electronics requires “inks” with electrical properties that can act as conductors, resistors or semiconductors. These inks are becoming more versatile. One example comes from Xerox, an American firm which makes office equipment and commercial printing systems. Its research centre in Canada has developed a silver ink which can be used to print flexible electronic circuits directly onto materials like plastic or fabrics.
印刷电子需要附带电子特征的“喷墨”，它要充当导体、电阻和半导体的角色。这样的喷墨变得越来越通用。下面举一个生产办公设备和商业印刷系统的美国公司Xerox的例子。这家公司在加拿大的研发中心发明了一种银质墨水，该墨水能够用来直接在如塑料或纤维这样的材料上打印柔性电子电路。
Silver is a better conductor of electricity than copper, which is typically used in circuits, but silver is expensive and tricky to print because it melts at 962°C. However, by making silver into particles just five nanometres (billionths of a metre) in size, Xerox has produced a silver ink which melts at less than 140°C. That allows it to be printed using inkjet and other processes relatively cheaply, says Paul Smith, the director of research at the laboratory. Only minuscule quantities of silver are used and there is no waste, unlike chemical-etching processes.
相比通常用于布置电路的铜，银是一种更好的电导体，但是银的价格昂贵并且其962°C的熔点也 使银质墨水打印略显棘手。然而，通过制造仅有5毫微米（百万分之一毫米）的银颗粒，Xerox公司已经生产出一种熔点不足140°C银质墨水。Xerox研发实验室的主管保罗•史密斯称“这使得用喷墨打印机和其他技术打印该墨水变得相对便宜。” 印刷过程只要使用少量的银，并且不像化学腐蚀过程，不会造成浪费。
Xerox’s PARC research centre in Palo Alto, California, is developing ways to use such inks. These can print circuits for various components, including flexible display screens, sensors and antennae for radio-frequency security tags. With the emergence of additive-manufacturing techniques, it starts to become possible to print such things directly onto the product itself, says Janos Veres, the manager of PARC’s printed-electronics team.
Xerox公司在加利福尼亚州的帕洛阿尔托研究中心正在开发一种打印上述银质墨水的技术。该技术能够将电路打印到多种多样的电子器件上，其中包含有机发光半导体、传感器和天线射频安全标签。帕洛阿尔托研究中心印刷电子团队的经理亚诺什•维若斯称“随着积制造技术的出现，直接在产品上打印这些器件不再是空想。”
That includes products with complex shapes. Optomec, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has developed additive-manufacturing systems for a variety of industries. It can print electronics directly onto a pair of glasses, for “augmented reality”; it can make a plastic water tank that uses embedded electronics to measure how full it is and turn pumps on or off; it can print sensors on military armour; or an antenna on the case of a mobile phone.
上述产品包括外形复杂的产品。坐落于新墨西哥州阿尔伯克基城的Optomec发明了一种适用于多种工业的积制造系统。它能够在增强现实技术中应用，直接在一副眼镜上印刷电子；它能够制造一种利用嵌入电子测量水量并控制水泵开关的塑料水箱；它能够在军备装甲上打印传感器，也能在 手机外壳上打印天线。
In a recent three-way tie-up, Optomec worked with Aurora Flight Sciences, an American producer of unmanned aerial vehicles, and Stratasys, a 3D-printing company based in Minneapolis, to make a “smart wing” for a small drone. The wing was made from a thermoplastic material using a Stratasys 3D printer. Optomec then used a process it calls Aerosol Jet to print circuits, sensors and an antenna on the wing. The idea is that such technology would allow lightweight drones that can be customised for specific missions and printed on demand.
在最近的三方合作中，Optomec公司联手美国无人飞行器制造商Aurora Flight Sciences和明尼苏达的3D打印公司Stratasys共同为小型无人机开发一种“智能机翼”。这种机翼由一种热塑材料用Stratasys 3D打印机制成。随后，Optomec用一种自称气溶胶喷气的方法在机翼上印刷电路、传感器和天线。 合作的目的在于使得这样的技术能运用到为执行特殊任务和按需定制的轻量级无人机上。
Optomec’s Aerosol Jet works very differently from inkjet printing, in which a print head positioned barely a millimetre away deposits a droplet of ink on a flat surface. Aerosol Jet at first atomises nanoparticle-based print materials into microscopic droplets, which are then focused, using a sheath of gas, into a precise jet stream directed by a nozzle. The nozzle can be held five millimetres or more away from the surface, which allows irregular shapes to be coated. Both the nozzle and the tray holding the item being printed can be manipulated through different angles to work on three-dimensional structures. The system can print electronic features smaller than a hundredth of a millimetre wide from a variety of materials.
Optomec公司的气溶胶喷气工作原理与喷墨打印的工作原理截然不同，后者有一个距离纸面仅有1毫米距离的打印头，打印头在纸面上打印一小滴墨水。气溶胶喷气首先将基于纳米颗粒的印刷材料分裂成微小墨滴，随后这些墨滴在鞘中气体的作用下集中到由喷嘴控制的精确气流中。喷嘴能够处于离印刷表面5毫米或更高的位置， 以便喷涂表面不规则的物体。人们从不同的角度操作喷头和支撑被打印材料的托盘来 作用于三维结构。该系统能够打印在各种各样的的材料 上使之具备小于100毫米宽的电器特征。
Instead of assembling an item from many separate components, 3D-printed electronics make it possible to print an entire product in a single machine, says Dave Ramahi, Optomec’s chief executive. However, for the technology to take off he believes it needs to be commercialised in an evolutionary way. This means applying it at certain stages of existing mass-production processes, such as printing antennae onto mobile-phone cases. Many phones use a number of different antennae to connect to different radio networks, so this would make more room for conventional electronics inside. Some commercial applications of the technology are less than a year away, adds Mr Ramahi.
Optomec公司的董事长戴夫•拉马希称“3D 印刷电子技术并不是把多个单独部件组装成一个部件，而是在一台机器中印刷整个部件。”然而，他认为要使这项技术 得到发展，需要循序渐进的方式 使该技术商业化。这就意味着像在手机 外壳上印刷天线一样，要使该技术在某些已有大规模生产过程中得到应用。有些手机使用大量不同的天线接收不同的无线电网络，所以这项技术就使其内部传统的电子器件拥有更大的空间。拉马希继续补充道“这项技术将会在一年内运用到一些商业应用中。”
So how difficult would it be to print a phone complete with all its electronic gubbins? Optomec is developing applications which could provide some of the necessary steps. Besides antennae these include edge circuits for the screen, three-dimensional connections for chips, multiple-layer circuits and touch-screen parts. It would also be possible to print the battery. The biggest challenge would be to print the chips that are the brains of the phone. These contain millions of transistors in a square millimetre and are at present made in silicon-fabrication plants costing $10 billion or more. Yet embedding even some circuitry means phones could be made slimmer, as well as reducing the costs of materials and assembly.
那么印刷一部手机机器及其所有电子器件的难度将会有多大呢？Optomec正在开发能够提供其中一些必要步骤的应用程序。除了天线，这些应用程序还包括屏幕边缘电路、芯片的三维 连接、多层电路和触摸屏部件。它也将能够印刷电池。印刷手机核心芯片将会是最大的挑战。这些芯片包含成千上万的晶体管密集于一平方毫米内，并且目前都在耗资100多亿美元的硅加工厂生产。然而，嵌入一些电路意味着手机将变得更轻便，同时也能降低材料和 组装成本。
from the print edition | Science and technology
3D制造业
Print me a phone
给我印一部手机
New techniques to embed electronics into products
将电子嵌入到商品的新技术
Jul 28th 2012 | from the print edition
OPEN up any electronic device and inside there are circuit boards, components and bundles of wire. Assembling these items into a product like a phone can be a tedious, labour-intensive process, and one that is often subcontracted to low-wage countries such as China. Now new ways of printing electronics in three dimensions are being developed. This makes it possible to incorporate circuitry and components into the material the product is made from, such as the phone’s case. It could revolutionise the way electronic goods are made.
随便打开一个电子设备，你会发现 里面有集成电路、电子组件和成捆的导线。把这些部件组装成一个 诸如手机的设备是一件枯燥乏味且需要密集劳动的过程，这样的工作往往会转包给如中国这样工资水平较低国家的代工厂。如今，一种新的三维印刷电子技术正在发展。①该技术能够像手机 外壳那样将电路和电子器件集成到组成产品的原材料上。这将会革命性地改变电子产品生产的过程。
Printing electronics is not new; screen printing, lithography, inkjet and other processes have long been used to manufacture circuit boards and components. But the technologies are improving rapidly and now allow electronics to be printed on a greater variety of surfaces. In the latest developments, electronics printing is being combined with “additive manufacturing”, which uses machines popularly known as 3D printers to build solid objects out of material, one layer at a time.
印刷电子并不是一项新技术；丝网印刷、平板印刷、喷墨打印以及其他打印技术早就被应用到制造电路板和电子器件的过程中。但是，这些技术在迅猛发展，如今能够将电子打印到多种多样材料的表面上。最新的进展当中，印刷电子技术被应用在积制造技术中，后者使用俗称3D打印机的设备通过一层层的累积材料来制造产品。②
Inking the changes
记录这些正在发生的变化
Printing electronics requires “inks” with electrical properties that can act as conductors, resistors or semiconductors. These inks are becoming more versatile. One example comes from Xerox, an American firm which makes office equipment and commercial printing systems. Its research centre in Canada has developed a silver ink which can be used to print flexible electronic circuits directly onto materials like plastic or fabrics.
印刷电子需要附带电子特征的“喷墨”，它要充当导体、电阻和半导体的角色。这样的喷墨变得越来越通用。下面举一个生产办公设备和商业印刷系统的美国公司Xerox的例子。这家公司在加拿大的研发中心发明了一种银质墨水，该墨水能够用来直接在如塑料或纤维这样的材料上打印柔性电子电路。
Silver is a better conductor of electricity than copper, which is typically used in circuits, but silver is expensive and tricky to print because it melts at 962°C. However, by making silver into particles just five nanometres (billionths of a metre) in size, Xerox has produced a silver ink which melts at less than 140°C. That allows it to be printed using inkjet and other processes relatively cheaply, says Paul Smith, the director of research at the laboratory. Only minuscule quantities of silver are used and there is no waste, unlike chemical-etching processes.
相比通常用于布置电路的铜，银是一种更好的电导体，但是银的价格昂贵并且其962°C的熔点也 使银质墨水打印略显棘手。然而，通过制造仅有5毫微米（百万分之一毫米）的银颗粒，Xerox公司已经生产出一种熔点不足140°C银质墨水。Xerox研发实验室的主管保罗•史密斯称“这使得用喷墨打印机和其他技术打印该墨水变得相对便宜。” 印刷过程只要使用少量的银，并且不像化学腐蚀过程，不会造成浪费。
Xerox’s PARC research centre in Palo Alto, California, is developing ways to use such inks. These can print circuits for various components, including flexible display screens, sensors and antennae for radio-frequency security tags. With the emergence of additive-manufacturing techniques, it starts to become possible to print such things directly onto the product itself, says Janos Veres, the manager of PARC’s printed-electronics team.
Xerox公司在加利福尼亚州的帕洛阿尔托研究中心正在开发一种打印上述银质墨水的技术。该技术能够将电路打印到多种多样的电子器件上，其中包含有机发光半导体、传感器和天线射频安全标签。帕洛阿尔托研究中心印刷电子团队的经理亚诺什•维若斯称“随着积制造技术的出现，直接在产品上打印这些器件不再是空想。”
That includes products with complex shapes. Optomec, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has developed additive-manufacturing systems for a variety of industries. It can print electronics directly onto a pair of glasses, for “augmented reality”; it can make a plastic water tank that uses embedded electronics to measure how full it is and turn pumps on or off; it can print sensors on military armour; or an antenna on the case of a mobile phone.
上述产品包括外形复杂的产品。坐落于新墨西哥州阿尔伯克基城的Optomec发明了一种适用于多种工业的积制造系统。它能够在增强现实技术中应用，直接在一副眼镜上印刷电子；它能够制造一种利用嵌入电子测量水量并控制水泵开关的塑料水箱；它能够在军备装甲上打印传感器，也能在 手机外壳上打印天线。
In a recent three-way tie-up, Optomec worked with Aurora Flight Sciences, an American producer of unmanned aerial vehicles, and Stratasys, a 3D-printing company based in Minneapolis, to make a “smart wing” for a small drone. The wing was made from a thermoplastic material using a Stratasys 3D printer. Optomec then used a process it calls Aerosol Jet to print circuits, sensors and an antenna on the wing. The idea is that such technology would allow lightweight drones that can be customised for specific missions and printed on demand.
在最近的三方合作中，Optomec公司联手美国无人飞行器制造商Aurora Flight Sciences和明尼苏达的3D打印公司Stratasys共同为小型无人机开发一种“智能机翼”。这种机翼由一种热塑材料用Stratasys 3D打印机制成。随后，Optomec用一种自称气溶胶喷气的方法在机翼上印刷电路、传感器和天线。 合作的目的在于使得这样的技术能运用到为执行特殊任务和按需定制的轻量级无人机上。
Optomec’s Aerosol Jet works very differently from inkjet printing, in which a print head positioned barely a millimetre away deposits a droplet of ink on a flat surface. Aerosol Jet at first atomises nanoparticle-based print materials into microscopic droplets, which are then focused, using a sheath of gas, into a precise jet stream directed by a nozzle. The nozzle can be held five millimetres or more away from the surface, which allows irregular shapes to be coated. Both the nozzle and the tray holding the item being printed can be manipulated through different angles to work on three-dimensional structures. The system can print electronic features smaller than a hundredth of a millimetre wide from a variety of materials.
Optomec公司的气溶胶喷气工作原理与喷墨打印的工作原理截然不同，后者有一个距离纸面仅有1毫米距离的打印头，打印头在纸面上打印一小滴墨水。气溶胶喷气首先将基于纳米颗粒的印刷材料分裂成微小墨滴，随后这些墨滴在鞘中气体的作用下集中到由喷嘴控制的精确气流中。喷嘴能够处于离印刷表面5毫米或更高的位置， 以便喷涂表面不规则的物体。人们从不同的角度操作喷头和支撑被打印材料的托盘来 作用于三维结构。该系统能够打印在各种各样的的材料 上使之具备小于100毫米宽的电器特征。
Instead of assembling an item from many separate components, 3D-printed electronics make it possible to print an entire product in a single machine, says Dave Ramahi, Optomec’s chief executive. However, for the technology to take off he believes it needs to be commercialised in an evolutionary way. This means applying it at certain stages of existing mass-production processes, such as printing antennae onto mobile-phone cases. Many phones use a number of different antennae to connect to different radio networks, so this would make more room for conventional electronics inside. Some commercial applications of the technology are less than a year away, adds Mr Ramahi.
Optomec公司的董事长戴夫•拉马希称“3D 印刷电子技术并不是把多个单独部件组装成一个部件，而是在一台机器中印刷整个部件。”然而，他认为要使这项技术 得到发展，需要循序渐进的方式 使该技术商业化。这就意味着像在手机 外壳上印刷天线一样，要使该技术在某些已有大规模生产过程中得到应用。有些手机使用大量不同的天线接收不同的无线电网络，所以这项技术就使其内部传统的电子器件拥有更大的空间。拉马希继续补充道“这项技术将会在一年内运用到一些商业应用中。”
So how difficult would it be to print a phone complete with all its electronic gubbins? Optomec is developing applications which could provide some of the necessary steps. Besides antennae these include edge circuits for the screen, three-dimensional connections for chips, multiple-layer circuits and touch-screen parts. It would also be possible to print the battery. The biggest challenge would be to print the chips that are the brains of the phone. These contain millions of transistors in a square millimetre and are at present made in silicon-fabrication plants costing $10 billion or more. Yet embedding even some circuitry means phones could be made slimmer, as well as reducing the costs of materials and assembly.
那么印刷一部手机机器及其所有电子器件的难度将会有多大呢？Optomec正在开发能够提供其中一些必要步骤的应用程序。除了天线，这些应用程序还包括屏幕边缘电路、芯片的三维 连接、多层电路和触摸屏部件。它也将能够印刷电池。印刷手机核心芯片将会是最大的挑战。这些芯片包含成千上万的晶体管密集于一平方毫米内，并且目前都在耗资100多亿美元的硅加工厂生产。然而，嵌入一些电路意味着手机将变得更轻便，同时也能降低材料和 组装成本。
from the print edition | Science and technology
完工备注：
完工时间：2012.07.31
原文链接：http://www.economist.com/node/21559593
作品链接： http://www.ecocn.org/thread-74384-1-1.html
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