Talking about the advantages of screen printing in making smart labels

Smart tags, as transponders for RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) systems, are currently the most advanced non-contact sensing technology. It has a series of outstanding advantages, such as large data memory capacity, high data density, good anti-pollution ability and durability, almost no impact on water, oil and chemical pollution, long reading distance, fast speed, and good data security performance and many more. Facts have proved that with the development of RFID and material technology, smart tags will replace the currently popular barcodes and become the new darling of retail, packaging and logistics.

RFID is a non-contact automatic identification technology that uses radio frequency signals to automatically identify target objects and obtain relevant data. The RFID system generally contains three modules, namely smart tags, readers, and radio frequency antennas. The system works as follows. When the tag is irradiated by the radio frequency signal generated by the RF antenna tag and transmitted to the system reader, the internal circuit generates an induced current and the chip is activated; the chip sends the information it contains through the tag's built-in antenna (coil); RFID system The radio frequency antenna receives the carrier signal sent by the tag, and transmits it to the reader through the antenna regulator; the reader then demodulates and decodes the received signal to obtain the data information contained in the tag.

From the working principle of the RFID system, the reader of the system can read multiple smart tags at the same time, and the identification of the tags is completely non-contact automatic identification, without any human intervention, only a variety of objects with smart tags Just move through the RF zone. Therefore, the use of smart label technology saves the manpower necessary for bar code technology, and also improves the sales efficiency of supermarkets, which is convenient for consumers and saves consumers time.

The relatively high cost of labels is the bottleneck of the smart label promotion process. Market research shows that the current unit price of each label ranges from about 20 cents to 1 dollar; it is generally accepted that for a single product, the acceptable label price is 5 cents. Therefore, in order to fully promote smart labels, efforts should be made from two aspects: further improve the performance of the label and reduce the production cost of the label.

The smart tag is composed of (silicon) chip, built-in antenna (coil) and substrate. At present, the performance and price of chips and substrates are basically stable, so the advantages of various manufacturing methods can only be reflected in optimizing the manufacturing process of the built-in antenna of the tag and reducing the manufacturing cost of the antenna. To determine the functionality and cost-effectiveness of the built-in antenna of a tag made by one method, at least three standards should be met: â‘ The antenna should have high electrical performance (impedance); â‘¡Allow easy chip mounting on the antenna ; â‘¢ Can produce in large quantities and at low cost.

At present, there are three main methods for making smart tag antennas.

· Etching method. Also known as subtraction technology. Using this method, a flat copper foil is first laminated on a plastic film; then the copper foil is coated with photosensitive adhesive, and after drying, it is illuminated by a positive film (pattern with the desired shape); placed in a chemical developer At this time, the illuminated part of the photoresist is washed away to expose the copper; finally put in the etching bath, all the copper that is not covered by the photoresist is etched away, thereby obtaining the copper coil of the desired shape.

· Coil winding method. Wind the tag coil on a winding tool and fix it. At this time, the antenna coil is required to have a large number of turns (a typical number of turns is 50 to 1500 turns). This method is usually used for tags with a small frequency range (such as less than l35kHz) and market applications that do not primarily consider the cost of tags.

· Conductive ink printing method. Also known as additive production technology. Because the tag antenna has a relatively rough shape, it can be realized by printing (adding) conductive ink on the substrate. At present, the UHF (Ultra High Frequency) tag antenna is mainly produced by screen printing.

Advantages of making a tag antenna by screen printing

The material used for the internal antenna of the label produced by screen printing is conductive ink.

Conductive ink is a conductive composite material formed by metal conductive particles (silver, copper, carbon) dispersed in the connecting material. After printing on the substrate, it acts as a wire, an antenna and a resistor. The ink is printed on a flexible or hard substrate (paper, PVC, PE, etc.) to make a printed circuit, and the antenna printed with conductive ink can receive radio frequency signals dedicated to RFID. Smart tag built-in antenna uses conductive ink screen printing method has many advantages compared with other methods (such as copper etching method), can be said to be a green, stable, low-cost solution, for mass production of low-cost labels is a An ideal process method, its advantages are reflected in the following aspects:

1. Low cost

A significant advantage of using the method of screen-printing conductive ink to make the internal antenna of the label is low cost and easy operation. The low-cost characteristics of this method are reflected in two aspects.

(1) Screen printing process. First of all, the investment in the introduction of screen printing equipment is much cheaper than the introduction of copper etching equipment; in addition, because there is no need to add additional investment due to environmental protection requirements during the screen printing process, the production and equipment maintenance costs are also lower than copper etching methods. In fact, the maintenance of copper etching production lines and the disposal of waste materials (such as residues in chemical etching tanks) themselves require a very expensive fixed cost, which also increases the unit cost of the label.

(2) Conductive ink. First of all, in terms of material cost, conductive ink is cheaper than etching metal coils; in addition, in terms of material consumption, the etching process consumes a lot of metal, and conductive ink printing antennas or circuits is fast, low cost, efficient.

2. Easy to operate

As an additive manufacturing technology, screen printing technology itself is an easy-to-control, one-step process compared to subtractive manufacturing technologies (such as etching). In the screen printing process, there are no other printing processes such as water and ink balance in offset printing, replacement of blankets, ink emulsification, and adjustment of ink fountain keys, so it has the performance of easy operation. [next]

3. "Green

It can be seen from the above introduction that the copper etching process must use photosensitive glue and other chemical reagents. These chemicals have a strong erosive effect, and the generated waste materials and emissions cause greater pollution to the environment. The screen printing technology uses conductive ink to print directly on the substrate without the use of chemical reagents, so it has the advantages of "green" and environmental protection.

Of course, using the copper wire winding technology to make the antenna is also a "green" and environmentally friendly manufacturing process. However, if the cost of the label is considered, the winding method is obviously inferior to screen printing.

4. Flexible substrate selection

Screen printing can print conductive ink on almost all printing materials to produce the required antenna. Therefore, the choice of label substrate is more flexible and diverse. Materials that can be used as substrates for smart labels are polyester, polyimide, ABS engineering plastics, PVC (polyvinyl chloride), polyethylene, polypropylene, polycarbonate, (paint) cardboard, etc. When making labels, the choice of materials depends on the specific application.

In contrast, copper etching technology can only use highly corrosion-resistant substrates, that is, highly aggressive substrates (such as polyester) that can withstand the chemical reagents used in the etching process. It is worth mentioning that the price of this kind of substrate may also be more expensive than the substrate selected by screen printing. For example, the polyester used in the copper etching process is much more expensive than the paper substrate of the screen printed bus ticket label.

5. Rich label style, good stability and reliability

Using screen printing technology can allow the antenna to have a variety of design styles, and can print a variety of antenna styles. Therefore, the produced labels are rich in style, allowing the labeled objects to have different surface shapes, such as surfaces of objects with different curvatures and angles. In addition, the printed conductive ink antenna can also withstand higher external mechanical pressure.

In fact, since the screen-printed conductive ink (or conductive paste) is formed by the conductive metal particles dispersed in the thermoplastic polymer binder or resin, the smart tag antenna prepared in this way has the characteristics of viscous fluid, Has better flexibility. When the label is bent under pressure, the performance and reliability of the screen printed smart label at this time, the smart label made by etching and the EAS (electronic anti-theft) label made by aluminum etching are both high.

About screen printing conductive ink

After the screen printing ink is dried, as the distance between the conductive particles becomes smaller, free electrons move in the direction of the applied electric field to form a current, which has good conductivity. For printing smart tags with built-in antennas, a good conductive ink formulation requires good printability. After printing, it has strong adhesion, low resistivity, low curing temperature, and stable conductive properties.

Facing the revolutionary changes in the fields of packaging, retail and logistics brought by RFID smart tags, and the broad application prospects of conductive inks in the tags, some domestic and foreign companies have also made outstanding achievements in the development of conductive inks. For example, abroad, Flint Ink Company of the United States has xt-bL the lines printed by conductive ink and the lines etched from copper in various radio frequency bands. Such as 860-950MHz ultra-high frequency, 2450MHz microwave and 13.56MHz high frequency have been tested and received very good results; Parelec company in the United States has also successfully developed Parmod conductive ink for printing smart tag antennas. For different purposes, some performance parameters of circuit coils printed by Parmod ink under different screen printing methods are shown in Table 1. In China, for example, Shanghai Baoyin Electronic Materials Co., Ltd. has launched a series of conductive inks (conductive paste); Wuhan Sanlai Technology also launched water-based conductive inks.

summary

Because of advanced technology and convenient management, smart tags have been added to the packaging of goods by many retailers to track the flow of goods in real time. It has great market potential and broad prospects. During the promotion and application of smart tags, how to reduce the cost of tags and improve performance is a top priority. Using appropriate conductive inks, printing conductive coils on the substrate through the screen printing method, as a built-in antenna for smart tags, this is undoubtedly an important way to reduce the cost of smart tags. With the maturity of radio frequency technology, electronic packaging technology, and the introduction of excellent conductive ink formulations, screen printing will play an increasingly important role in promoting high-performance, low-cost applications of smart labels.

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