NASA Investigates 3-D Printing for Building Densely Populated Electronic Assemblies
April 26, 2016 | NASAEstimated reading time: 2 minutes

As detector assemblies get smaller and denser — packed with electronic components that all must be electrically connected to sense and read out signals — it’s becoming increasingly more challenging to design and manufacture these all-important instrument devices.
A team of NASA technologists at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, however, has begun investigating the use of a technique called aerosol jet printing or direct-write manufacturing to produce new detector assemblies that are not possible with traditional assembly processes.
“If we succeed, aerosol jet technology could define a whole new way to create dense electronic board assemblies and potentially improve the performance and consistency of electronic assemblies,” explained Goddard technologist Beth Paquette, who is leading the R&D effort that began last fiscal year. Furthermore, aerosol jet printing promises to slash the time it takes to manufacture circuit boards, from a month to a day or two, she added.
Important Distinction
As with other 3-D printing techniques, aerosol jet manufacturing builds components by depositing materials layer-by-layer following a computer-aided design, or CAD, drawing. However, jet aerosol printing offers an important difference.
Instead of melting and fusing plastic powder or some other material in precise locations, as in the case of many 3-D printers, aerosol jet printing uses a carrier gas and printer heads to deposit a fine aerosol of metal particles, including silver, gold, platinum, or aluminum, onto a surface. Aerosol jet printers also can deposit polymers or other insulators and can even print carbon nanotubes, cylindrically shaped carbon molecules that have novel properties useful in nanotechnology, electronics, and optics.
“It can print around bends, on spheres or on something flat, or on a flexible surface, which then can be flexed into the shape you want,” she said.
These attributes make the technology ideal for detector assemblies, particularly those that need to be shaped differently or are very small, yet dense because of the large number of tiny components that must be electrically wired or linked together on a circuit board — an inescapable reality as instruments get smaller and smaller.
“We can make these wires microns in width,” Paquette said. “These lines are very small, down to 10 microns wide. These sizes aren’t possible using traditional circuit board manufacturing processes.” (By way of comparison, the average human hair measures between 17 and 191 microns in width.)
Page 1 of 2
Suggested Items
Kyocera Licenses Quadric’s Chimera GPNPU AI Processor IP
05/08/2025 | BUSINESS WIREQuadric announced that Kyocera Document Solutions Inc. (hereinafter: Kyocera) has licensed the Chimera™ general purpose neural processor (GPNPU) intellectual property (IP) core for use in next generation office automation system on-chip (SoC) designs.
Scanfil Boosts Investment in Electronics Manufacturing in the US
05/08/2025 | BUSINESS WIREScanfil is investing in a second electronics manufacturing line in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The demand for manufacturing electronics in the USA has increased over the past two years and is expected to continue growing.
Cybord's Visual AI Solution to Be Integrated with Siemens' Opcenter MES
05/07/2025 | PRNewswireCybord, a leading provider of advanced visual-AI electronic component analytics, and Siemens Digital Industries Software have signed a new OEM agreement to integrate Cybord's cutting-edge AI technology with Siemens' Opcenter™ software for Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES).
SEL Announces 2025-2026 Scholarship Recipients
05/07/2025 | Schweitzer Engineering LaboratoriesSchweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) is pleased to announce the latest recipients of the SEL Scholarship Program for the 2025-2026 academic year. This year, SEL has awarded 15 scholarships, each valued at $5,000, to exceptional students pursuing degrees in engineering and applied technology.
Baker Hughes' Waygate Unveils Nanotom HR for Advanced Inspection
05/06/2025 | Baker HughesWaygate Technologies, a Baker Hughes business and global leader in nondestructive testing (NDT) solutions for industrial inspection, unveiled its new extremely high-resolution computed tomography (CT) system, Phoenix Nanotom® HR (High Resolution) at the Control 2025 show in Stuttgart, Germany.