Additive Manufacturing of Electronic Components
VQ Research

Market Opportunity

VQ Research, Inc. (VQR) is applying additive printing technology to the manufacturing of passive components, a +$20 billion market that enables such products as smartphones, electric vehicles, pacemakers, computers, oil drilling platforms, and others.

VQR owns patented IP that includes 3D printing and inkjet techniques that will enable a revolution in the manufacturing of complex electronics (including passive components such as capacitors, inductors, resistors).

In the same way that additive manufacturing has revolutionized mechanical engineering, VQR’s additive methods offer the same latitude to electrical engineering. These advantages include rapid prototyping, design verification, facile customization, high performance refinement, and critical supply remediation. Moreover, the company can leverage these additive manufacturing methods to create custom shaped and featured components that leading companies need for the high-density packaging form factors required of next generation electronics.

Market Size

The multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) market is expected to grow from USD 14.0 billion in 2022 to USD 26.6 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 13.8% during the forecast period.

Major applications for the automotive, communications equipment, consumer electronics, and other industries. (source)

The Problem We Are Solving

The technology behind ceramic capacitors—a key component within the electronics industry and found in almost every device—has not evolved significantly in the past 70 years. Ceramic capacitors are still supplied as discrete parts (like transistors in the 1960s) and installed by surface mount technology (SMT). VQ Research anticipates the ability to produce SMT ready parts—but additionally will enable new integration paradigms with “on-package” printing. These innovations will have impact into diverse areas such as the next generation 5G mobile devices, IoT, medical electronics, and EV vehicles.

One Example of a Key Market Opportunity

Today, the number of MLCCs required in an EV automobile is about 8,000 to 10,000 units per car: Tesla’s Model 3 contains 9,000 MLCCs and their Model S and X each have more than 10,000. Battery EVs (BEV) require more MLCCs than internal combustion cars and the number of MLCCs required in an EV is expected to reach around 30,000 units. (source)

Our Value Proposition

The value proposition for VQR printing of electronic components includes:

  1. Highly configurable, customizable, and denser packaged passive components to meet the needs of cutting-edge manufacturers like Intel, Apple, Medtronic, and others.
  2. Significant capex reduction (the Company’s technology has the potential to yield infrastructure costs approximately10% of that required for traditional methods);
  3. Rapid prototyping capabilities that do not require tooling for new designs and technical specs, thereby accelerating the prototyping process from months to days (and at a cost savings ratio of up to 100:1); and
  4. The ability to manufacture complex passive structures within a single unit and integration into dense electronics packaging platforms

Short-term Primary Value Propositions
(present to 2 years)

  • Remedial measures for supply shortages in MLCC markets
  • Rapid prototyping
  • Custom shapes
  • Additive printing into ceramic platform packages

Roadmap for the longer-term
(2 to 5 years)

  • All passive components as a single part (patented)
  • Dielectric engineering for microwave thick film strip-line
missing image / place holder

Our Achievements

DARPA Contract

VQ Research has been a subcontractor in a DARPA project and worked with a partner company to supply our MLCC technology to a critical national security project.

Innovation & Entrepreneurship International Competition

VQR won 2017 First Prize in the Advanced Manufacturing category and Second Prize overall in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship International Competition in Shenzhen, China securing $100,000 in revenue for the company.

Intellectual Property

VQ Research is building an intellectual property portfolio specific to the additive manufacturing of passive electronic components. To date it holds 6 organic patents.

US 10,128,047 – Methods and systems for increasing surface area of multilayer ceramic capacitors.

US 10,236,123 – Methods and systems to minimize delamination of multilayer ceramic capacitors.

US 10,242,803 – Geometric optimization and printing closer to the edge, thereby reducing space between dielectric layer edge and conductive layer end while raising the breakdown voltage.

US 10,332,684 – 3D Printing for noble metal cladding of MLCCs to significantly reduce materials cost.

US 10,431,508 – Use of custom geometries in 3D printing MLCCs to increase surface area and thus increase performance.

US 10,685,892 – Manufacturing of all passive components as a single part, benefit to passives similar to the advent of IC for active components.