Oct 12 2012
ICAP Patent Brokerage announces for auction an exclusive license to semiconductor microsphere technology developed at the University of California, Irvine.
This licensing agreement includes a package of patents covering technology developed in the lab of Professor Melissa Orme-Marmarelis through a National Science Foundation grant. The lot will be included in the 17th ICAP Ocean Tomo IP Auction on November 29, 2012, at The Ritz Carlton in San Francisco, California.
"We are pleased to partner with a prestigious research institution like the University of California, Irvine to offer this exclusive license to our global base of buyers," says Dean Becker , CEO of ICAP Patent Brokerage. "As semiconductors are the foundation of modern electronics, the methods offered for license have the potential to increase the production efficiency of a wide range of electronic products available today."
Key Characteristics & Benefits
The offered licensing agreement includes exclusive rights to techniques for high-speed fabrication of smaller and more highly uniform microspheres. Microspheres, minute metallic balls, are commonly utilized in the manufacture of electronic products, such as packaged integrated circuits (ICs) and printed circuit boards (PCBs). ICs and PCBs are incorporated into virtually all electronic devices manufactured today. Conventional methods for fabricating microspheres generally use a capillary system with a large orifice, which may avoid clogging but results in various defects, like irregular shapes and sizes, due to slow solidification and a lack of uniformity.
The offered patents improve upon such conventional methods through enhanced control of the shape and dimension of microspheres during production. The technology involves directing a stream of metal droplets from a nozzle directly onto an arbitrarily-shaped collector or PCB. The metal droplets are placed on the collector in the molten state and solidify rapidly. The motion of the collector can be two or three dimensional and may use techniques such as electrostatic charging or deflection of the droplet stream, which enables the product's shape and dimensions to be precisely controlled.
Source: http://www.icappatentbrokerage.com