Advanced Laser Microfabrication in High Volume Manufacturing

There is increased interest in the laser microfabrication of variable shape and size features for a wide variety of materials. Quality and throughput requirements continue to increase, with tighter tolerances regarding dimensional and positional specifications. Consequently, improved laser sources and manufacturing techniques, with advanced system integration and process control need to be developed to be able to address ever increasing industry requirements.

This paper discusses recent advances enabled by a new generation of IPG Photonics fiber lasers that are resulting in systems having greater flexibility, greater reliability and lower operating cost of ownership than their predecessors, and that are producing machining processing rates up to an order of magnitude faster. Examples are given of using high brightness, high pulse energy, pulsed fiber lasers known as quasi continuous wave (QCW) fiber lasers operating in the near infra red (1070 nm) with pulse durations in the micro to millisecond regime, as well as using green (532 nm) fiber lasers in the nanosecond regime. Applications include high speed drilling of ceramics such as alumina and AlN with sub-50um diameter holes machined at 3000, 750 and 300 holes per second in 100, 381 and 635 microns thick substrates, respectively; high speed cutting and scribing of alumina in 381 and 635 microns substrates, high quality cutting of up to 3 mm thick sapphire substrates, as well as high quality cutting & drilling of polymers from PEEK, to silicone, epoxy, and FR4 are presented. Laser machining techniques and their implementation in a new high-volume manufacturing platform are discussed.