MEMS
Micro moluding – How to secure reliable volume manufacture
Trey Barwick, VP of Production, Accumold focuses on what influences the ability of micro molders to mass manufacture successfully
here are many stages in the product development process for micro parts and components, but ultimately OEMs require parts to be produced at volume and repeatably.
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Let’s start with a fact. Not all micro molders are the same. Indeed, not all companies that promote themselves as micro molders are in fact micro molders.
You see, when it comes to size, there is a scale, and this scale can be described in different ways to promote competencies. Some suppliers describe themselves as precision molders, others proport to achieve nebulous levels of accuracy (nebulous because accuracy and indeed claims of precision without some degree of qualification are effectively meaningless). Precision for company “A” maybe be anything but precision for company “B”, so the phrase has a degree of opacity that is unhelpful. Precision molding services therefore cover a huge spectrum of part
60 MAY 2021 | ELECTRONICS TODAY
sizes and feature sizes on parts. When looking at the larger part size and lower tolerance side of the market, vertical integration and the ways that customers and supplier “partner” and interact is less critical to success. If parts are produced close to specification, are delivered close enough to time, and on cost, job done. Scrutiny on who in the supply chain is producing what and when is less relevant than is the case when moving into the area of micro molding. Micro molding typically requires the achievement of truly exacting and sometimes almost impossibly tight tolerances, and in many instances the demand is for tiny parts sometimes the size of a grain of salt, or slightly larger parts with sub-micron feature sizes. When micron tolerances matter, suddenly the customer and micro molding provider must enter into a different and closer partnership in product development, and it becomes hugely important that the micro molder owns,
manages, develops, and innovates in every aspect of the supply chain.
True micro molders can achieve micron tolerances on parts that are typically less than a gram in weight and can be as light as less than 0.001 grams. For manufacturers unused to such levels of accuracy, and more attuned to the injection molding process on a macro scale, the thought of mass manufacturing parts with such dimensions and tolerances may seem all but impossible, but micro molders do this daily, and often require zero failure rates for parts and components used in safety critical applications.
Attention to detail and attention to process is everything, as not only do micro molders need to make tiny parts with tiny features repeatably and attaining micron tolerances, but they need to do this in a cost-effective and timely fashion. So saying, what needs to be avoided at all costs is having to go back to the drawing board with designs, having to
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