科学技术

　　3D manufacturing

　　3D制造

　　Print me a phone

　　给我打印一部电话

　　New techniques to embed electronics into products

　　新技术直接把电子元件嵌入产品中

　　OPEN up any electronic device and inside there are circuit boards, components and bundles of wire.

　　拆开任何一个电子设备，你都会在里面发现电路板、电子元件和一束束电线。

　　2_副本.jpgAssembling these items into a product like a phone can be a tedious, labour-intensive process, and one that is often subcontracted to low-wage countries such as China.

　　把他们组合在一起做成产品的过程是很乏味的，这个劳动密集型的过程常常被分包给低工资的国家，比如中国。

　　Now new ways of printing electronics in three dimensions are being developed.

　　现在三维电子印刷术已经比较成熟，

　　This makes it possible to incorporate circuitry and components into the material the product is made from, such as the phone's case.

　　这种新方法使得在原材料上把电路和原件一体化成为可能，

　　It could revolutionise the way electronic goods are made.

　　这将彻底改变电子产品的生产方式。

　　Printing electronics is not new; screen printing, lithography, inkjet and other processes have long been used to manufacture circuit boards and components.

　　印刷电子技术并不新鲜，丝网印刷、光刻、喷墨印刷和其他技术用于生产电路板和元件已有很长时间，

　　But the technologies are improving rapidly and now allow electronics to be printed on a greater variety of surfaces.

　　由于该技术正飞速发展，现在已可以在各式各样的表面进行印刷。

　　In the latest developments, electronics printing is being combined with additive manufacturing, which uses machines popularly known as 3D printers to build solid objects out of material, one layer at a time.

　　在最近进展中，已经把电子印刷和快速成型制造结合在一起，快速成型制造就是使用机器对原材料进行逐层加工成型。

　　Printing electronics requires inks with electrical properties that can act as conductors, resistors or semiconductors.

　　印刷电子技术需要带有电气性能的墨水，这些墨水能扮演导体、电阻或半导体的角色，

　　These inks are becoming more versatile.

　　并且变得越来多才多艺，

　　One example comes from Xerox, an American firm which makes office equipment and commercial printing systems. Its research centre in Canada has developed a silver ink which can be used to print flexible electronic circuits directly onto materials like plastic or fabrics.

　　就拿施乐公司的例子来说，它开发的一种银质墨水能够直接在柔性材料上打印出电路，比如塑料和纤维织物。

　　Silver is a better conductor of electricity than copper, which is typically used in circuits, but silver is expensive and tricky to print because it melts at 962°C.

　　银的导电性要比铜好，所以常用在电路中，但银不仅昂贵而且很难用于印刷。

　　However, by making silver into particles just five nanometres in size, Xerox has produced a silver ink which melts at less than 140°C.

　　然而实验室研究主管Paul Smith说，施乐公司通过把银制成仅有5纳米的小颗粒，生产的银质墨水就能在低于140°C熔化，

　　That allows it to be printed using inkjet and other processes relatively cheaply, says Paul Smith, the director of research at the laboratory.

　　这样的墨水能够通过喷墨方式或者其他比较廉价的处理方式进行打印。

　　Only minuscule quantities of silver are used and there is no waste, unlike chemical-etching processes.

　　与化学蚀刻处理法不同，这种方法不仅银用量极少，并且不会浪费。

　　Xerox's PARC research centre in Palo Alto, California, is developing ways to use such inks.

　　施乐公司位于加州帕洛阿尔托的PARC研究中心正在研发使用此墨水的技术。

　　These can print circuits for various components, including flexible display screens, sensors and antennae for radio-frequency security tags.

　　这些技术能够为不同的电子元件打印电路，包括柔性显示器、传感器和经安全认证的射频天线。

　　With the emergence of additive-manufacturing techniques, it starts to become possible to print such things directly onto the product itself, says Janos Veres, the manager of PARC's printed-electronics team.

　　PARC的电子印刷技术小组主管Janos Veres说，随着快速成型制造技术的出现，直接在产品身上印刷出电路开始变得可能。

　　That includes products with complex shapes.

　　这还包括具有复杂形状的产品，

　　Optomec, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has developed additive-manufacturing systems for a variety of industries.

　　总部位于新墨西哥州阿尔伯克基的Optomec公司已经为多个行业开发了快速成型制造系统：

　　It can print electronics directly onto a pair of glasses, for augmented reality; it can make a plastic water tank that uses embedded electronics to measure how full it is and turn pumps on or off; it can print sensors on military armour; or an antenna on the case of a mobile phone.

　　为了增强现实，它能直接在眼镜上进行电子印刷；它能运用嵌入电子技术测量塑料水箱里的水有多满，并控制水泵的开关；能在军用盔甲上印刷传感器；或在手机外壳上直接印刷天线。

　　In a recent three-way tie-up, Optomec worked with Aurora Flight Sciences, an American producer of unmanned aerial vehicles, and Stratasys, a 3D-printing company based in Minneapolis, to make a smart wing for a small drone.

　　在最近三方合作中，Optomec公司与极光飞行科学公司和Stratasys公司合力为小型无人机打造了智能机翼。

　　The wing was made from a thermoplastic material using a Stratasys 3D printer.

　　该机翼由热塑性材料制造，并由Stratasys的3D打印机成型，

　　Optomec then used a process it calls Aerosol Jet to print circuits, sensors and an antenna on the wing.

　　然后Optomec采用名为气雾喷射的技术在机翼上印刷出电路、传感器和天线。

　　The idea is that such technology would allow lightweight drones that can be customised for specific missions and printed on demand.

　　采用这种技术的方法能够让轻量级无人机根据任务和需求进行定制和印刷。

　　Optomec's Aerosol Jet works very differently from inkjet printing, in which a print head positioned barely a millimetre away deposits a droplet of ink on a flat surface.

　　Optomec公司的气雾喷射技术与喷墨印刷术有很大不同。

　　Aerosol Jet at first atomises nanoparticle-based print materials into microscopic droplets, which are then focused, using a sheath of gas, into a precise jet stream directed by a nozzle.

　　后者打印头仅仅在一毫米远的位置把墨水微粒汇集在打印平面上，而气雾喷射技术会先把打印材料雾化为纳米级别的微小液滴，在气体护层下通过喷嘴进行精确聚集喷射，

　　The nozzle can be held five millimetres or more away from the surface, which allows irregular shapes to be coated.

　　这种喷嘴距离打印面5毫米或者更远，所以可以在不规则外形上进行打印。

　　Both the nozzle and the tray holding the item being printed can be manipulated through different angles to work on three-dimensional structures.

　　不管是喷嘴还是支撑被打印物体的托盘都可以在三维结构上通过改变角度进行操作，

　　The system can print electronic features smaller than a hundredth of a millimetre wide from a variety of materials.

　　比起动辄上百毫米的电子产品，该技术可以在多种材料上打印出更小的产品。

　　Instead of assembling an item from many separate components, 3D-printed electronics make it possible to print an entire product in a single machine, says Dave Ramahi, Optomec's chief executive.

　　不必把多个单独的组件装配到一起，3D电子印刷术使得用单一机器打印出整个产品成为可能，Optomec 首席执行官 Dave Ramahi说到。

　　However, for the technology to take off he believes it needs to be commercialised in an evolutionary way.

　　然而他认为该技术的使用还需要经历商业化的发展，也就是说在目前大批量生产的过程中只在特定阶段采用该技术，

　　This means applying it at certain stages of existing mass-production processes, such as printing antennae onto mobile-phone cases. Many phones use a number of different antennae to connect to different radio networks, so this would make more room for conventional electronics inside.

　　比如在手机制造过程中印刷天线，因为很多手机采用不同的天线来接入不同的无线网络，这在传统电子产品内部会占用较大的空间。

　　Some commercial applications of the technology are less than a year away, adds Mr Ramahi.

　　他又补充说到，该技术的商业应用会在一年内实现。

　　So how difficult would it be to print a phone complete with all its electronic gubbins?

　　打印一部电话到底有多困难？

　　Optomec is developing applications which could provide some of the necessary steps.

　　Optomec正开发一些应用程序，它们可以提供一些必要的步骤。

　　Besides antennae these include edge circuits for the screen, three-dimensional connections for chips, multiple-layer circuits and touch-screen parts.

　　除了天线之外，它们还可以打印屏幕的边缘电路和联通芯片、多层电路板、触摸屏的三维连接器，

　　It would also be possible to print the battery.

　　甚至电池也可以被打印。

　　The biggest challenge would be to print the chips that are the brains of the phone.

　　但是最大的挑战来自于芯片的打印，

　　These contain millions of transistors in a square millimetre and are at present made in silicon-fabrication plants costing $10 billion or more.

　　这里每平方毫米包含上百万个晶体管，并且目前可制造它的硅加设备价值100亿美元甚至更多，

　　Yet embedding even some circuitry means phones could be made slimmer, as well as reducing the costs of materials and assembly.

　　而植入电路意味着手机可以做的更加纤薄，同时也减少了原材料和装配的成本。