Chemical Etching process can be concluded in a series of steps including Cleaning, Laminating, Exposing, Developing, Etching, and Stripping, after which rigorous inspection is automatically carried out on all components.
See below a 3D animated video of the Chemical Etching process. To learn more about detailed process of Chemical Etching, download the Whitepaper Chemical Etching here.
The material is cleaned to remove all surface contamination. This provides a suitable surface for resist adhesion later in the process.
The cleaned metal 'blank' is then coated with a light-sensitive photoresist in a Class 6 clean room.
The metal sheet is then exposed to ultra violet light, which hardens the photoresist.
We use the LDI (Laser Direct Imaging) technology which is far more accurate than traditional photo tooling. The LDI Imager is capable of projecting high resolution images directly from a CAD file. In this way photo masks become redundant, which significantly reduces costs and decreases lead time.
Unexposed areas are developed away, leaving bare metal.
Etching solution is sprayed on both sides of the metal at high pressure. This accurately removes the unwanted metal.
The resist is removed in the end to leave behind burr and stress free components.
To know more about the Chemical Etching technology, feel free to talk to one of our engineers, or download our free Whitepaper Chemical Etching.