3M to ramp up touch sensor manufacturing

3M has announced plans to aggressively upscale its touch sensor film manufacturing capacity this year.

This would take capacity to more than 600,000 square metres every month and to feed the production capacity, 3M will roll out three film products – Patterned Silver Nanowire Touch Sensor Film, Patterned Metal Mesh Touch Sensor Film and Advanced ITO Touch Sensor Film.

The films give technology firms the high conductivity, transparency and flexibility they need, with a target sheet resistance of 40 to 80 ohms per square and a patterning structure of silver traces that are less than 2.0 microns wide.

What's more, the patterned metal mesh can easily be used in both curved and foldable touchscreen designs without any detrimental effect on performance. This also means that the sensors and conductors are less likely to suffer any damage, something which has been an issue with traditional film solutions.