BizEsp, the leading SME of this proposal, dentified an opportunity to develop hyper fine solder powders for ultra0miniaturised and functional consumer electronics manufactured in as environmentally sustainable way and to gain commercial advantages via such innovation.
Figure 1. The Future: Ultra-Functional miniaturised electronics with sustainability
Consumer electronics (figure 1) as exemplified by the cell phone have continuously decreased in size whilst offering more and more functions. The future cell phones will offer phone/video/TV/medical diagnostics/computer power using roll-up flexible screens. Sustainability is of paramount importance as electronics manufacture consumes enormous resources, [1]. However, currently advancement is being limited by the lack of hyper fine solder powders to enable ultra-high interconnect density on Printed Circuit Boards(PCB) which is needed for further miniaturisation and greater functionality. This limitation offers an opportunity to innovate and develop unique new products for:
1. Reduction in electronics size, weight and therefore the amount of raw materials used.
2. Finer interconnects, higher interconnect density, freeing-up of real estate on the printed circuit board and therefore enabling increase in component density.
This is two year project with a budget of around £2M funded by the European Union's Framework 7 research programme.
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