The absorption ink transfer mechanism of gravure offset printing for electronic circuitry

The gravure offset method has been developed toward an industrially viable printing technique for electronic circuitry. In order to obtain the optimum ink resin for printing lines of required thickness (>5 /spl mu/m) of narrow lines (down to 25 /spl mu/m), several ink resin systems have been assessed in previous studies by the authors. The best printed results were obtained with a novel ink using a hydrocarbon resin. This ink did not comply with the traditional ink transfer mechanism based on evaporation of the solvent, but with a postulated new "absorption mechanism.".