The semiconductor industry has two major printing technologies: pad printing and direct laser marking. Pad printing offers highly legible marks; however, this technology is not digital and solvent-based inks are required. Direct laser etching offers digital capability with poor contrast. Our laser thermal transfer printing technology offers high contrast marks with digital capability on a variety of semiconductor materials including epoxy molding compounds, ceramic, gold, nickel and silicon.Our laser thermal transfer printing process employs a proprietary foil ink which is transferred to an electronic component. The mark is subsequently cured with ultraviolet light or thermal energy to obtain highly durable marks. The prints on these semiconductor parts must be resistant to solvent, acid (solder flux) and abrasion.I will present the requirements for the electronics industry and the chemical approaches that have been taken with various laser printing heads.
Lisa Siewierski, "Curable Inks for Laser Thermal Transfer Printing" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies (NIP16), 2000, pp 118 - 121, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2000.16.1.art00031_1