In this paper, fully inkjet printed multilayer capacitors and inductors are fabricated and characterized using poly 4-vinylphenol (PVP) ink as the dielectric layer and silver nanoparticle ink as the conductor. Inkjet printed through vias, created with a novel dissolving method are used to make RF structures in a multilayer inkjet printing process. The vias have been realized in a 350-nm PVP film and exhibit resistance better than 0.1 Ω. Spiral inductors from 10 to 75 nH have been realized with maximum quality factors around five. The 10-nH inductor exhibits a self-resonant frequency slightly below 1 GHz. Metal-insulator-metal capacitors are realized with densities of 50 pF/mm ² . These capacitors demonstrate values ranging from 16 to 50 pF. The 16-pF capacitor shows a self-resonant frequency over 1.5 GHz. The successful implementation of inductors and capacitors in an all inkjet printed multilayer process with vias is an important step toward fully inkjet-printed large area and flexible RF systems.

For the first time we present a method to create all inkjet printed multilayer RF passive components including vias. Although there has been previous work on multilayer RF components, they are not fully inkjet printed and involve complicated processing techniques such as laser cutting, conductive epoxy, or reactive ion etching. This work demonstrates a truly all inkjet printed solution with a novel dissolving method for vias realization. A major issue with inkjet printing is often surface roughness, however by processing these materials at low temperature surface roughness <;20nm RMS has been obtained which allows for high quality components to be fabricated and allows for stacked multilayer designs.

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) reflect the relevance that sustainability is gaining in our societies. Including sustainability-related topics in university curricula requires the revision of the contents, teaching/learning strategies and assessment techniques. Although engineering degrees are starting to introduce them, it may become complex to design significant educational experiences. This partly comes from the fact that sustainability is a highly multidisciplinary issue but, currently, the knowledge is compartmentalised into subjects. In this challenging scenario, concrete activities are required for students to better internalise sustainability issues. This work aims to present a methodology that guides academic staff to materialise the design of sustainability-related multidisciplinary activities. Since the designers of new activities may benefit from knowledge of similar experiences, this article describes one implementation throughout eight subjects within the Bachelor’s degree on Industrial Electronics and Automation Engineering at UPV/EHU. The analysis and optimisation of the thermal comfort and energy consumption in the Faculty building became the common thread to design an educational itinerary that covers several subjects along all academic years of the degree, making use of active methodologies. The problem is analysed for every subject from different perspectives. Two questionnaires, carried out before and after the activities, were used for analysing the perception of the students after the activities. Results proved that the multidisciplinary project raised awareness about the SDGs and allowed students to visualise how to apply the acquired skills in problems close to their experience. As a result, more students considered sustainability as a possible future professional activity.

This paper presents a full-wave 3-D FEM simulation methodology for magnetic toroidal cores up to 100 MHz. 3-D FEM simulation of magnetic toroidal cores has gained significant relevance in recent years. However, the use of magnetic materials in simulation presents some difficulties. Complex permeability is typically the only electromagnetic property used in magnetic toroidal cores' simulation. Nonetheless, recent results suggest that other properties must also be considered in high-frequency simulations. The presented methodology is particularly practical as it accurately models commercial cores easily. Electromagnetic properties valid for simulation are directly extracted from the cores with two simple setups. No complex fixtures or sample modification are required. Two ferrites (MnZn and NiZn) and a nanocrystalline core are studied. Complex permeability is characterized with a largely used method, and complex permittivity is extracted directly from the cores using the parallel plate capacitor method. With this methodology, cores' electromagnetic models are achieved, which are validated by comparing 3-D FEM simulations of several inductors with their measurements. Results lead to a simple and practical methodology to perform small-signal cores simulation in linear zone up to 100 MHz, which had not been achieved so far.