In the last decade, ink-jet has come to be viewed as a precision microdispensing tool, in addition to its huge success in color printing. Today, this tool is being used in a wide range of applications, including electrical & optical interconnects, sensors, medical diagnostics, drug delivery, MEMS packaging, and nanostructure materials deposition. Ink-jet microdispensing is data-driven, non-contact, and is capable of precise deposition of picoliter volumes at high rates, even onto non-planar surfaces. Being data-driven, ink-jet dispensing is highly flexible and can be readily automated into manufacturing lines. This paper will illustrate a few of the applications of ink-jet technology that are either BioMEMS packaging applications, or specific Biomedical Device manufacturing applications.

Ink jet printing has attracted increasing interest in recent years as a tool for medical research. The ability to precisely position pl volumes of liquid has a number of potential applications in tissue engineering. The dispensation of bioactive chemicals, e.g. adhesion and growth factors, can be used for the directed growth of nerve cells. Whole cells have been dispensed without excessive damage to their function. This leads to the possible construction of biologically active structures from cells and other materials with applications in: fundamental cell biology, cell arrays for toxicity testing, bioreactors and cell factories for pharmaceutical and tissue (cartilage) manufacture, external assist devices (e.g. next generation dialysis, and even complete organs for implantation.)

Toner printing technologies represented by electrophotography have big advantages in electronic printing. Toner is controlled by electrostatic force and forms images on paper. So, high speed and plain paper printing are realized. The electrophotography has six processes of charging, exposure, developing, transfer, fixing, and cleaning. Charging and exposure are unified into one process to form latent electrostatic image and electrostatic printing is developed. To realize simpler printing mechanism, TonerJet® and TCB (Toner Cloud Beam) are also proposed. Electrophotography is reviewed from the fundamental viewpoint. Other toner technologies are also reviewed.

The acceptance of electrophoretic display technology as an important alternative to both paper publishing and conventional display readers has now been proven by both the diversity and quantity of new products on the market. Properties that are driving this acceptance over conventional LCD displays are the paper-like look, daylight readability, low power consumption, and viewing angle independence. In addition, electrophoretic display frontplane technology is suitable for use with the new generations of flexible and printed electronic backplanes. Many of these new backplane technologies utilize new materials and processes from conventional semiconductor manufacture. The current E Ink display performance as well as the recent advances in these technologies will be discussed.

Eastman Kodak Company, a recognized leader in conventional and digital printing technologies, provides unified workflow solutions for a large number of diverse applications. In the area of inkjet printing, Kodak continues to pioneer ultra-high productivity inkjet technology for applications including, but not limited to, commercial, transactional, direct mail, packaging, and book publishing. Recent advancements at Kodak in areas such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology, computer modeling of complex microfluidic systems, nanopigment ink technology, and ink-substrate interactions, enabled the development and subsequent commercialization of a new inkjet technology that offers extremely high productivity with high image quality and excellent reliability on a wide variety of substrates at a low total ownership cost. This extensible technology, referred to as “Stream,” forms the basis of a technology platform that expands and allows participation in markets that rely on high-speed digital print production. The fundamental physics of droplet generation and control, nanopigment ink chemistry, and the interaction of the ink with the substrate onto which it is printed, create inherent advantages in key areas such as productivity, image quality, and ink latitude. In this paper, we will describe the advancements in these areas and how these advancements enabled the successful development of Stream technology.

Japan has little domestic energy resources and relies on overseas energy resources for the bulk of its needs. The energy consumption of Japan in 2000 became approximately nine times larger than in 1955, just after the end of the Second World War. Expectations for the role of energy conservation are increasing, due to the exacerbation of global environmental problems. These suggest that we need not only the reduction of electricity consumption but also the reduction of environmentally-unfriendly materials and the adoption of product recycling.Some consider environmental conservation to be a burden on the economy. For a corporation, in order to sustain effective environmental conservation activities, the activities themselves must be part of a system that yields profits and enhances the corporate structure. In business processes, environmental conservation activities and profit yielding activities must be oriented in the same direction, and for this reason, these can be achieved at the same time by sharpening our ingenuity. We defined our environmental management as a “management that conserves the environment while creating economic value”. By setting a high level of environmental target, and accelerating process innovation and development of environmental technologies for products, the environmental loads and costs will be reduced by saving energy and resources while enhancing the product competitiveness.I will show an environmental management system and some typical environmental technologies developed in the Japanese digital printing industry.

An overview is presented of how and where key ink components influence the jetting behaviour during printing. Physical properties alone are an insufficient guide to ink performance. Small variations in ink viscoelasticity influence the upstream flow dynamics and jet break-up mechanism downstream. Recently developed novel techniques capable of quantifying fluid rheology of low viscosity complex inkjet inks at conditions similar to those during printing are discussed which have not been possible until recently. These techniques provide useful tools to differentiate between apparently identical inks but which show different jetting behaviour. This is often the case, where ink batch variations or a minor formulation alteration causes different jetting behaviour and influence print reliability.

In view of the tremendous technical challenges for realizing next-generation information technology, organic semiconductors have attracted significant attention since the emerging electronics based on them have features that are complimentary to main stream electronics based on silicon. Thanks to the recent advent of organic transistors, the emergence of a new class of electronics makes full use of the unique features of organic semiconductors, such as the ultralow cost, low weight, and flexibility, is becoming more realistic. With this background, our group discerned that large-area circuits could be easily fabricated using organic transistors, which are essential for certain applications, and has developed large-area sensors and actuators using organic transistors. More accurately, we have integrated various types of sheet-type sensors and sheet-type actuators with organic transistors on plastic films and have demonstrated the world's first electronic artificial skins (E-skins), sheet-type Braille displays, and many other sheet-type devices. In the forthcoming ambient electronics era, multiple electronic objects are scattered on walls, ceilings or in imaginative locations and interact each other to enhance safety, security and convenience. For implementation of many electronic objects in our daily life, large-area sheet-type devices, which would be printed on plastic sheet, cloth, and/or paper, are expected to play an important role. In this talk, I will describe recent progress and future prospects of organic transistor-based flexible, large-area sensors and actuators. Moreover, the issues and the future prospect of digital fabrication will be addressed from the view point of ambient electronics.

Drop-on-demand (DOD), or impulse, inkjet has been in practical use as a printing and deposition technology for over thirty years. The popularity and growth of this technology can be attributed to evolutionary improvements in the physics of operation, materials, and ink or fluid chemistry. In addition to traditional desktop printing, DOD inkjet is finding acceptance in the areas of industrial printing and digital fabrication. In general, most applications of DOD inkjet technology have centered on thermal and piezoelectric technology as actuators for drop ejection. However, other types of actuators such as thermal membrane, electrostatic membrane and electrostatic inkjet may provide advantages in a more specific range of applications. Although this paper will focus on piezoelectric actuators, a review of the history, physical principles, and current state of each type of inkjet actuator is presented. Thermal inkjet made DOD technology and color graphics available to millions of users on the desktop as well as many other printing applications. Low cost piezoelectric technology entered the marketplace just prior to the rising wave of digital fabrication and materials deposition applications. The wider materials compatibility has led to broader use of piezoelectric inkjet in industrial applications. The physics of the piezoelectric inkjet drivers and the efficacy of the technology for printing applications are also reviewed. Links are drawn between the deformation modes and the varieties of actuation chamber design. Simple one dimensional acoustic theory can be used to model the propagation of pressure waves induced by piezoelectric actuation. The use of multi-pulse waveforms for the control of drop formation is discussed. Free boundary fluid models describe the interaction of pressure wave energy and surface tension that leads to an ejection of a small volume of fluid. Two-phase fluid models describe the dynamics of drop flight, including the formation of satellites and the consequences of drop size modulation techniques. A model of drop placement accuracy is presented. The techniques and tools of piezoelectric inkjet characterization are reviewed, including advances in imaging techniques and the emerging use of modeling and simulation as a primary tool in an iterative design-simulate-prototype-test printhead development process. These explicit models have allowed the successful development of miniaturized piezoelectric designs fabricated with MEMS techniques, which represent the state-of-the-art and future of piezoelectric inkjet. Lastly, the paper will view these significant milestones and technological advances in light of how inkjet technology might influence the future.