Mass printing technologies are promising technologies for the production of inexpensive electronics.In recent experiments, we have fabricated an integrated circuit solely by means of fast mass-printing methods without any steps breaking the production continuity. Our results clarified important issues that have to be taken into account when adapting printing technologies to the fabrication of electronics. Compatibility of materials and processes for the deposition of different layers on top of each other, uniformity and quality of layers with respect to electronic requirements as well as resolution and registration turned out to be challenging for the adaptation of printing technologies.In addition, first applications are already available, which rely on simplicity and inexpensive fabrication instead of high integration and high-end performance. Flexible cardboard-keyboards, chipless paper-identification systems as well as simple sensor systems can be regarded as applications that are paving the way for more sophisticated, printed electronics applications.
M. Bartzsch, U. Fuegmann, T. Fischer, U. Hahn, H. Kempa, K. Preissler, G. Schmidt, A. Huebler, "All-printed electronics and its applications: a status report" in Proc. IS&T Digital Fabrication Conf., 2006, pp 13 - 16, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2006.22.2.art00007_3