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72 PCB007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2022 Inkjet printing technology produces drop- lets of the ink contained in the fluid channel, with diameters ranging from 10 to 150 μm, which approximately correspond to the diam- eter of the nozzle (Figure 2). e volume of the droplets is in the picoliter range. Inkjet print- ing is suitable for electronics manufacturing due to the following reasons: • It is a non-contact process that selectively deposits a wide range of materials onto a wide range of substrates in a drop-by-drop manner • e shop floor space requirements, the initial investment, and the time to get an inkjet printing setup running are lower than most other printing technologies • It is suitable for a wide range of produc- tion scales, from prototyping to large-scale industrial production • Ink consumption and material waste are minimal • It is flexible regarding its positioning within a process chain • It can produce patterned thin films. It should be mentioned however, that manufacturing of highly complex integrated circuits (ICs) has exclusively been performed by specialized techniques deviating from standard inkjet technologies. 2 Inkjet Printheads e printhead is the heart of the inkjet printer. In addition to the original thermal thin-film printhead of HP's, there is also the piezo-elec- tric head that makes up most of the additive- type of inkjet printing. Now comes the piezo- acoustic head and the continuous laser-assisted Figure 2: Simplification of inkjet printing process 3 .