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Articles
DKN Research has been publishing a lot of articles at technical magazines, conferences and seminars. Important articles published recently are posted in this archive. They could be valuable information sources for not only technologies but also market. You can reach them without any cost.
Flexible Circuits
Flexible Electronics
Printable Electronics
Etching Technologies
Historical Studies
Market & Technology Trends
and more
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Flexible EL made by screen-printing
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Latest News Release

August 24th, 2016

Copper Laminates Made From Transparent Polyimide Films Are Now Available

Significant progress has been made over the last few years in building transparent and heat resistant flexible circuits. Several transparent materials were developed along with special manufacturing processes. A copper laminate made from a thin transparent polyimide file plated with a copper layer on both sides for use in traditional manufacturing processes is now available. DKN Research, a leading engineering firm specializing in microelectronics and packaging technology, developed a new copper metalizing process using transparent polyimide films. The new laminate will provide manufacturing capabilities using transparent flexible circuits for traditional printed circuit manufacturers.
Polyimide films are the primary substrate material for heat resistant flexible circuits because of the balanced performances between heat resistance and physical properties. The problem is they tend to have an orange or brown color, so the film’s transparency is very low. This is a huge barrier for any optical applications. PET films are another popular substrate material for transparent flexible circuits, but their heat resistance is to low and will not work in standard assembling processes such as soldering and wire bonding. A couple of new heat resistant resins such as LCP have been synthesized and are considered the next generation material for flexible circuits; however, they may not be transparent either. Many chemists use to question the availability of a product that is both transparent and heat resistant. That has changed. Several chemists were successful in synthesizing transparent polyimide resins, and few companies have brought to market some thin transparent polyimide films that serve as the substrate for heat resistant flexible circuits.
There are still a few technical hurdles in building transparent flexible circuits. The biggest one is the availability of an appropriate copper laminate for the standard photolithography-chemical etching process. Some of the copper laminates had problems with the surface treatment and gluing of the copper. The transparency of the circuits was remarkably reduced by absorption and scattering.
DKN Research developed a total solutions package for transparent flexible circuits based on the each application. During the R&D process, DKN Research has established electroless and electro plating process of nickel, copper and gold on the transparent polyimide films, that provides thin copper laminates available for the standard photolithography-etching process of high density flexible circuits. The new copper laminate could be valuable for traditional flexible circuit manufacturers, because the new laminate does not need any additional equipment or chemicals to build transparent flexible circuits. The transparency of the circuits can be over 85%.
The standard construction of the laminate uses double sided 3 micron thick copper layers on a 25 micron thick transparent polyimide film. The copper thickness can be thinner at 0.2 microns, and wider thickness ranges will be available for circuit manufacturers. The thin copper conductor could be valuable for semi-additive processes for ultra-fine flexible circuits with micro via holes in the transparent flexible circuits. DKN Research will provide free laminate samples along with a processing guide to circuit manufacturers.
DKN Research will upgrade the laminates and process capabilities to build the leading edge flexible circuits. DKN Research is happy to share the materials and information with circuit manufacturers and device manufacturers.

(Click here to see full news release)

Welcome to DKN Research Home Pages

DKN Research is the world’s leading engineering firm specializing in microelectronics. We continuously develop unique and practical advanced technologies for flexible and printable electronics, and can provide state of the art technology to assist in reaching your goals.

This is a supplemental website for DKN Research. Our information is updated regularly, and is rather informal and sometime grammatically incorrect. Our researchers are more interested in updating the website before sending it to a proofreader. Feel free to contact us with any questions or feedback.
Go back to DKN Official site

YouTube Introduction
DKN Research provides quick introductions about its broad range service and technical capabilities with actual examples through YouTube.

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Ultimate Technologies

DKN Research has been developing many kinds of ultimate technologies and products. There are several examples as follow.

#Copper-free flex circuits with small via holes⇒

#Transparent & heat resistant flexible circuits⇨

#Metal-free flex circuits with small via holes⇒

#30 micron traces in multi-layer circuits up to 10 layers

#25 micron traces with silver thick film conductors made by screen-printing

#Thin microwave absorption films⇒

#Thick heat resistant films up to 225 micron thick⇒

From the Latest Newsletter（Dominique’s Business Column）

July 24th 2016

#1622 Does “Pokemon Go” Indicate The New Direction?
A new game software has been released from Nintendo, one of the major computer game providers early this month, and it has been booming with several new business records in the American market. Several medias have been reporting the new phenomena in the society. Over 25 million people download and play the game every day. Mostly young people spend many hours per day for the game looking for various Pokemons in town or field. Very frequently, they cannot stop the game. They continue to play the game even during walking or bicycling. Certainly, they have been making a lot of accidents and troubles.
Now, the soft wear is available in 36 countries. Nintendo is a Japanese company, but the game was released just last week in Japan. Japanese people were eager for the release in Japan. Japanese government has announced a special advice for the potential customers to eliminate the troubles before the release.
Accordingly, Nintendo’s stock price has been making new records every day in the last two weeks. The total trade of Nintendo’s stocks has exceeded six billion dollars. It is more than one quarter of the whole trade in Tokyo Stock Market. Certainly, it is the new record as daily trade of the single company.
It may be too early to consider the financial performance of the year of 2016. However, it is very sure that Nintendo will have strong rebounds for the fiscal year of 2016 after five year slow season.
There is a significant change with the business direction for Nintendo. Previously, Nintendo was successful with unique game machines competing against Sony and Microsoft. Unfortunately, smart phones changed the

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Our Unique Products
Below are a few examples of products and technology from DKN Research
(Click here to see more details on Products Page)

Ultra Thin Connectors for High Density Flexible Circuits

Polymer Base Thick Film Circuits available for soldering and wire bonding

Gold Wire Bonding (400X)

Wire Soldering on Polymer Thick Film Circuits

Hybrid High Density Double Side Substrate with Micro Ball Grid Array and Flying Leads

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Precious 3D Components of Hybrid Materials

Laminated, Etched, Plated, Electro-formed, Laser Drilled and more

Hybrid Metal Components, 3D Engraved, 3D Formed and plated

Multi-layer Ceramic Device