General Info
Through chemical etching and metal stamping; typical applications such as RF/EMI shields, screens, contacts, connector housings, lead frames, apertures and many more. The photochemical machining process is capable of producing your part from over 50 different metal alloys, including: Alloy 42, Alloy 48, Aluminum, Beryllium Copper, Brass, Copper, Hastalloy, Hy-mu 80, Inconel, Invar, Kovar, Metglas, Molybdenum, Monel, MuMetal, Nickel, Nickel Silver, Nitinol, Permalloy 80, Phosphor bronze, Silicon steel, Spring steel, Steel, Stainless Steel, Titanium & Zirconium.
We can produce your part with chemical etching from sheets of metal ranging in thickness from .0005 inch (0.013 mm) up to .090 inch (2.286 mm). Metal thickness tolerance often varies with the metal thickness; generally, the thicker the metal, the larger the thickness tolerance associated with it. Additionally, mass production of volumes of highly accurate metal micro components can be fabricated under a different method; Parts can be delivered as endless product through the Reel-to-Reel process. This proprietary etching technology is second to none. It can simplify the further processing of big quantities at customer site significantly. With machinable material thicknesses starting from 25 µm (1 mil), the outer dimensions of the etched parts vary between millimeters and structuring surfaces of complete coils of metal. With use of a continuous etching line; which enables manufacturing of endless metal strips. Following the unwinding of a metal coil the material is processed through all individual steps of the manufacturing process. At the end the singulated strips of product are wound on reels. This means one is working from a reel of metal (namely the coil) to a final product on a reel (namely the customized etch part). Or briefly: Reel-to-Reel. Individual strips can be as long as 800 m. The number of strips varies depending on the product size. Thus it could also be just one single strip, if structuring of the complete surface of the coil is needed. For such structuring our ability to exactly control the etch depth is coming in handy. This Reel-to-Reel process is mastered only by a few etching companies worldwide. Besides our unique etch equipment this is also caused by the sheer number and complexity of the process variables; more than 300 measurement parameters are monitored. Due to the requirement of a certain flexibility of the material while running through our production line, the maximum metal thickness is limited to around 350 µm (some 14 mil).
