Using cold spray to package electronic implants

Abstract

Due to improvements in electronics manufacturing, electronic implants keep decreasing in size and are moving towards integrated-circuit (IC) based designs. As implant electronics become significantly smaller with the use of ICs, traditional implant packaging become a limiting factor on implant miniaturization. Additionally, current packaging techniques can be expensive, and time and labor intensive. Building electronic packages can require many materials, multiple machines, and several manufacturing steps. This thesis explores cold spray as an alternative packaging method that would address the issues associated with traditional packaging. Cold spray could be used to create conformal packaging around electronic implants. Two biocompatible packaging materials, ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) and titanium, were cold sprayed on two different electronic material substrates, silicon and polyimide. The results from these experiments are presented in this work.