Micromanufacturing Engineering and Technology

Chapter 17 Tooling Process Chains and Concepts

Hans Nørgaard Hansen, Mogens Arentoft Peter T. Tang Giuliano Bissacco Guido Tosello

Introduction

Miniaturization has been one of the driving forces of technology during the last 20 years. As predicted by Taniguchi in 1983, by now the technology has moved into the nano-processing era and even for precision machining processes sub-micrometer precision is achievable [1]. This development has been made very clear in the semiconductor industry during the last 30 years, where the number of components on a chip has been approximately doubled each 18 months. This phenomenon is usually referred to as Moore’s law. In recent years the need for micro-mechanical systems has increased, for example in connection ...