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Columns & Departments
COLUMNS
4 Front Page
Don Nelson,
Publisher
Rise in use of hybrid
manufacturing processes.
13 Micromachining
Alan Richter,
Senior Editor
Mechanical issues influencing
a part’s surface finish.
16 Measurement Matters
Tim Feeley,
Scienscope International
Video measurement comes
into focus.
18 Down Sizing
Dennis Spaeth,
Electronic Media Editor
Silicon pacemakers are heartfriendly.
20 Swiss Machining
Kip Hanson,
Contributing Editor
Microboring tools targeted
for tiny holes.
48 Last Word
Interview with Frank
Pfefferkorn, University
of Wisconsin-Madison
Micropolishing with lasers.
DEPARTMENTS
6 Tech News
42 Products/Services
47 Advertisers Index
6
20
On MICROmanufacturing.com
18
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3-D love story
Objet Ltd. has posted a cool video showing the
capabilities of its new Objet30 Pro 3-D printer.
The printer offers the accuracy and versatility
of a high-end rapid-prototyping machine in a
small package. micro.delivr.com/1gxhv
ICOMM 2012 coverage
View six video reports from the Seventh International
Conference on MicroManufacturing
(ICOMM 2012). Organizers hailed the balanced
attendance from Asia, Europe and North
America as a first for the annual gathering.
micro.delivr.com/1gxhw
Sand that kicks back
A team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology has developed algorithms
that would enable heaps of “smart sand” to
assume any shape. See Tech News (page
10) for more information and check out the
school’s video demonstrating the technology.
micro.delivr.com/1gxhx
micromanufacturing.com | 1

Features
May/June 2012 • Volume 5 •
Issue 3
Cover Story
24 More than Meets
the Eye
William Leventon,
Contributing Editor
Googly-eyed goggles are under
development.
Features
30 No Mass Appeal—Yet
William Leventon,
Contributing Editor
Additive manufacturing has yet
to achieve mass-production
status.
34 Power Scavengers
Howard Lovy
Energy-harvesting market
charged, ready to grow.
38 Prickly Situation
Howard Lovy
Microneedles play big role in
drug delivery.
2 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
30
ON THE COVER:
24
34
Sensimed AG provided the
photo of its Triggerfish contact
lens, designed to monitor
fluctuations in intraocular pressure
experienced by glaucoma
patients.
www.micromanufacturing.com
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dnelson@jwr.com
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arooks@jwr.com
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(847) 714-0175
alanr@jwr.com
Electronic Media Editor
Dennis Spaeth
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dspaeth@jwr.com
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wleventon@verizon.net
Kip Hanson
(520) 548-7328
khanson@jwr.com
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ginam@jwr.com
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julied@jwr.com
Circulation
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ysalcedo@jwr.com
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susanw@jwr.com
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FRONTpage Don Nelson
Publisher
Hybrid processes raise the performance ceiling
4 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
first encountered hybridization in manufac-
I turing 25 years ago, shortly after being hired
as associate editor of MICROmanufacturing’s
sister publication, Cutting Tool Engineering.
One of my duties was to sift through the vast
number of press releases we received about
new products. A release crossed my desk one
day describing a tool I had never heard of—the
Dreamer, a hybrid tool for drilling and reaming.
“Wow,” I thought, “how clever!”
The number of clever hybrid tools, machines
and processes has grown exponentially in
the quarter-century since I was awed by the
Dreamer. And, given the increasing level of
research into hybridization, I expect many more
hybrid products and processes to come online in
the next few years.
The need to reduce manufacturing costs
by increasing production efficiency underlies
the hybridization trend. Many single-process
techniques, like milling, turning and other
subtractive methods, operate near the upper
limits of their performance capabilities.
Combining technologies can raise their respective
productivity ceilings.
Among today’s biggest productivity
squelchers are advanced materials developed
for aerospace and medical components.
They boast significantly higher mechanical
and thermal properties than earlier-generation
materials. These characteristics result
in stronger, lighter parts, but they are much
harder to machine.
One hybridization strategy for cutting
advanced materials is to use a laser to soften
the workpiece right before a tool cuts it.
Researchers at a Michigan university have
devised a novel system for machining ceramics,
wherein a laser beam passes through a
diamond turning insert and strikes the material
in front of the insert’s cutting edge. (See Tech
News, page 10.)
Another appeal of hybrid methods is their
ability, in certain situations, to produce morecomplex
part features, impart finer surface
finishes and/or achieve higher productivity
levels than a single process can. These
performance improvements occur when
the combined processes mutually enhance
one another, when one process mitigates an
inherent weakness of the second or when each
process cancels out the other’s shortcomings.
Many studies cite examples of a hybrid
technique dramatically outperforming its
constituent processes.
Additive manufacturing (AM) seems likely
to join the hybridization movement. Hybridizing
lets a manufacturer combine the best of
the subtractive and additive worlds.
An engineer I spoke to recently cited an
example from his experience. An aerospace
company had approached his firm, seeking ways
to shorten the time needed to produce a component
consisting of a tube with a crown-shaped
feature on top. Previously, the tube and crown
were machined from a single piece of metal.
The firm recommended forming the tubular
section instead of machining it; this saves
material as well as the time previously required
to program and cut the tube. The crown now is
fabricated via a powder-metal AM process that
meets specs while eliminating the occasional
scrapping of components that resulted from
machining the crown’s intricate features.
Because additive techniques are relatively
new compared to subtractive ones,
little research has been conducted into additive-subtractive
hybridization. An interesting
paper on the subject was published recently
by researchers at the Institut de Recherche en
Communications et Cybernétique de Nantes
(France). Titled “A new DFM (design for manufacturing)
approach to combine machining and
additive manufacturing,” the authors propose
a method by which a one-piece CAD model
of a part can be separated into modules—like
pieces of a 3-D puzzle. Users can then determine
which part features would be best to
produce by additive and subtractive methods.
Clever stuff that’s worth reading. You can find
the paper at www.micromanufacturing.com. µ
Publisher
MICROmanufacturing
(847) 714-0173, dnelson@jwr.com

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TECHnews
Applications abound
for nanocrystalline
diamond coatings
Diamond’s “precious” physical properties
enable the hardest known material
to be a desirable coating for an array
of applications.
“I’m excited about a slew of things,”
said Dr. Patrick J. Heaney, founding
member and chief technology officer
for NCD Technologies LLC, a Madison,
Wis.-based provider of nanoscale polycrystalline,
or nanocrystalline, diamond
(NCD) coatings. “I’m really excited
about coating medical devices.”
Those include implants. Because dia-
SMALLstuff
Nano-quadrotors: robots that fly
Earthquakes collapse buildings, bad guys take hostages,
nuclear power plants melt down. Terrible events happen
every day that put first responders in harm’s way. But what
if there were a safer way to locate trapped survivors, gather
information on radiation and gas leaks, or discreetly identify
the capabilities of criminals without risking the lives of
fire and safety personnel?
Professor Vijay Kumar and his team at the University of
Pennsylvania General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and
Perception (GRASP) Lab have designed devices that do just
that. Their “autonomous agile aerial robots” can maneuver
through doorways and windows, navigate around obstacles
and perform complex aerial acrobatics, all while mapping
their surroundings in real time.
A nano-quadrotor fits in the palm of your hand. It looks
a bit like a pair of popsicle sticks taped into a + shape and
is festooned with microchips, sensors and miniature batteries,
which, according to Kumar, are sometimes secured
with duct tape. “They’re not high tech,” he said. “The frame
consists of carbon fiber rods with a main controller board
attached to the center. We use off-the-shelf components for
most of it. About the only thing high tech is the software we
load onto the chips.”
The software controls the robot’s four independent rotors,
explained Kumar. “Using feedback from on-board
accelerometers and gyros, motor commands are calculated
600 times per second,” enabling the rotors to respond
instantaneously, adjusting pitch, roll and yaw by simply
speeding up or slowing down each motor.
Nano-quadrotors can maintain position relative to their
surroundings, as well as to each other. This allows them to
6 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
NCD Technologies
Tools coated with nanocrystalline diamond.
mond is biocompatible, it could be deposited
as a coating on various implanted
metals that often cause health problems
in patients sensitive to metals, such
as cobalt, chromium and nickel. Heaney
added that diamond has beneficial antibacterial
properties, making it difficult
for bacteria to grow on it.
Because it is so hard, diamond is
highly wear-resistant. Compared to conventional
metal and polymer implants,
artificial joints coated with nanocrystalline
diamond would offer a marked
reduction in wear debris and should
prevent inflammation and toxicity that
results when the body’s immune system
attacks the debris caused by wear,
GRASP Lab
Nano-quadrotors flying in formation.
fly like a flock of birds—or other creatures. “We studied the
insect and animal worlds and were able to mimic the capabilities
of, for example, a group of ants,” said Kumar. “The
robots monitor the separation between each other as they
fly and maintain an equal distance, avoiding collisions and
coordinating movement across the group.”
And, by working together, they can lift items much heavier
than any individual robot.
But one of the robot’s main virtues—its size—is also
one of its disadvantages. “The smallest ones have a battery
life of about 10 minutes, depending on their payload,” said
Kumar. “Quadrotors are not particularly efficient.” To get
around this problem, Kumar and his team have deployed
teams of robots on motherships to the work site, allowing
them to conserve energy for the primary mission. “We’ve
also developed automated charging capabilities. The robots
know when they’re running out of juice, and they go
find a charging station.”
—Kip Hanson
Videos of the nano-quadrotors in flight can be found at www.
micromanufacturing.com.—Ed

according to researchers at the University
of Alabama at Birmingham.
“Our results add to the early evidence
that nanodiamonds are indeed nontoxic
in living cells,” stated UAB research associate
Vinoy Thomas in a universityissued
report. “The next step will be to
conduct experiments to confirm where
nanodiamond particles of varying sizes
and concentrations end up, and if buildup
at those destinations is safe.”
Aerospace, with its vast assortment of
moving parts that experience wear, is another
potential area of interest for NCD
Technologies, but Heaney pointed out
that the company currently is focused
on coating micro-endmills. NCD Technologies
is working with Performance
Micro Tool Inc., Janesville, Wis., to coat
endmills as small as 5µm in diameter using
the hot-filament chemical-vapor-deposition
process. He expects the coated
microtools to be commercially available
within a few months.
NCD Technologies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
An uncoated microtool after machining (left) shows aluminum adhering to it, whereas an
NCD-coated microtool after machining shows no material adherence.
To prevent a microtool from being
weakened during the coating process,
NCD Technologies takes a different approach
than that used to coat macro-
scale tools. Instead of acid etching a
tungsten-carbide tool to remove surface-layer
cobalt, which poisons diamond
growth and generates graphite,
the company employs a proprietary
“advanced processing technique” that
doesn’t remove tool material or generate
stress concentrations, according to
Heaney. The resulting coating has 96 to
97 percent sp 3 bonds, typical of natural
diamond, with a small percentage of
graphite at the grain boundaries.
micromanufacturing.com | 7

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TECHnews
NCD Technologies’ process also enhances
coating adhesion, compared to
conventional methods, Heaney noted.
Instead of the standard coating technique,
where a seed layer nominally attaches
to the tool and those seeds become
diamond, the NCD coating chemically
bonds to the tools via nucleation
sites created during pretreatment.
“We’re actually changing some of the
carbon atoms in the carbide so that diamond
is growing off of existing carbon
and using those nucleation sites rather
than adding a seed layer,” he said.
Coated microtools last about 10
times longer than uncoated microtools,
according to Heaney. In addition,
workpiece particles adhere to uncoated
microtools whether cutting wet or dry,
but that’s not the case with NCD-coated
tools. The cut chips flow up and out of
the flutes without sticking. That is especially
important at the microscale, because
when a chip sticks, the next chip
has to push it out of the way. That increases
forces and, eventually, causes the
tool to break.
—Alan Richter
Merging 3-D printing
and printed electronics
Stratasys and Optomec Inc. have
collaborated on a project to merge 3-D
printing and printed electronics.
The project will
create what Stratasys, Eden
Prairie, Minn., calls the
first fully printed hybrid
structure. It has the potential
to change development
of medical devices,
consumer electronics, cars
and planes, according to
the company.
“New product designs
can now be developed
with electronics that con-
form to the shape of the part, minimizing
the number of components used in
a product,” said Ken Vartanian, marketing
director for Optomec, Albuquerque,
N.M. “Compared to physical wires,
printed traces have very low mass. Further
weight savings occur because the
printed part and its overcoat act as insulators,
eliminating the need for wiring
with dedicated insulation. Merging
Optomec and Stratasys
Electronic circuitry was printed onto a model of a UAV wing,
which was made by a 3-D printer.
micromanufacturing.com | 9

TECHnews
these technologies creates new design
options—allowing the engineer to create
smaller, thinner, lighter and morefunctional
end products.”
Vartanian added that most approach-
In brief…
Every day brings news of exciting micromanufacturingrelated
research underway at the nation’s universities. Below
is a sampling of five ongoing research projects. Additional
information about each can be found on our Web
site, www.micromanufacturing.com.
Laser/lathe combo takes on brittle materials. Researchers
at Western Michigan University have built a hybrid
machine that reportedly cuts brittle, difficult-to-machine
materials—like glass, ceramics and porcelain—in a highly
efficient manner. The machine combines single-point-diamond
turning and lasing. In operation, the beam of a nearinfrared
fiber laser passes through an optically transparent
diamond cutting tool and emerges at a point on the workpiece
just in front of the tool’s cutting edge. The laser softens
the workpiece material before the tool cuts it, which eliminates
fracturing of brittle parts and lowers tool wear.
Laser beam
Plastic deformation/
chip formation
High-pressure-phasetransformation
region
Depth
of cut
Load
-45° rake angle Single crystal diamond tool
Western Michigan University
With WMU’s µLAM machine, a laser beam is directed through a
diamond cutting tool, ahead of the cutting edge.
Memory chip can take the heat. Rice University researchers
have developed transparent memory chips that are
flexible enough to be folded in half and can survive hostile
conditions, including 1,000° F temperatures. Speaking at
the 243rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American
Chemical Society, Rice chemist James M. Tour said devices
that incorporate the chips can retain data despite an accidental
trip through a clothes dryer—or even a voyage to
Mars. And, with their unique 3-D internal architecture, the
new chips can store extra gigabytes of data while consuming
less space.
Short circuiting implantable-device hackers. Researchers
10 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
Cutting direction
Cutting edge radius
Machined surface
Ceramic workpiece
es used to print electronics are based on
traditional 2-D printing methods, such
as inkjet and screen printing. These
methods don’t work for printing electronics
that must conform to the shape
at Purdue and Princeton universities have produced a prototype
device that works as a firewall to block hackers from
interfering with implantable, wireless medical devices, such
as pacemakers, insulin-delivery systems and brain implants,
according to a Purdue press release. Operationally, the device
relies on “multilayered anomaly detection” technology
to identify potentially
malicious transactions.
When detected,
the firewall alerts the
patient or blocks “malicious
packets” from
reaching the medical
device via electronic-
jamming technology.
The Purdue-Princeton
prototype, dubbed
MedMon (short for
of 3-D structures.
The joint venture’s first project is
the development of a “smart wing”
for an unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) model. The wing incorporates
Boston University
Boston University researchers
developed this microfluidic device for
diagnosing the flu.
medical monitor), can be worn like a necklace or installed
in a cell phone.
Self-assembly with ‘smart sand.’ Scientists at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology’s Distributed Robotics Laboratory
have developed algorithms that would enable heaps
of smart sand to assume any shape, allowing spontaneous
formation of new tools or duplication of broken mechanical
parts. Unlike many other approaches to self-assembly,
smart sand follows a subtractive method, akin to stone
carving, rather than an additive method, such as snapping
LEGO blocks together. With smart sand, individual grains
pass messages back and forth and selectively attach to each
other to form a 3-D object.
Point-of-care device diagnoses flu. Researchers in the Biomedical
Engineering Department at Boston University have
published results of a 4-year study that reportedly validates
the prototype of a rapid, low-cost, point-of-care microfluidic
device capable of quickly diagnosing the flu. “The researchers
miniaturized an expensive 3-hour, lab-scale diagnostic
test—known as RT-PCR and [currently] considered
the gold standard in flu detection—into a single-use microfluidic
chip,” according to a report posted on the BU Web
site. About the size of a microscope slide, the chip consists
of a column at the top that extracts ribonucleic acid (RNA)
from a sample associated with a flu virus, a middle chamber
that converts the RNA into deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
and a channel at the bottom that replicates enough of the
DNA to allow it to be read by an external device.

functional electronics, such as control
circuits, sensors and antennae, that allow
it to be aware of its surroundings,
communicate information and react to
programmed responses based on current
conditions.
For the smart wing, Optomec’s
Aerosol Jet system printed a conformal
sensor, antenna and circuitry directly
onto the wing of a UAV model. The
wing itself was fabricated via the Fused
Deposition Modeling process developed
20 years ago by Stratasys. The
electrical and sensor designs were provided
by Aurora Flight Sciences, a maker
of UAVs.
—Susan Woods
Ultrasonic machining
finds new applications
in micro world
Reducing partmaking cycle time
by machining multiple features simul-
Abrasive
Slurry
Abras ives
C avitation
B ubble
Tool
Workpiece
Debris
Bullen
With ultrasonic machining, material removal
is accomplished by microchipping of the
workpiece through the combination of
free-moving abrasive particles in a slurry
energized by an ultrasonically vibrating tool.
taneously is a key feature of ultrasonic
machining, according to Tom Fote,
director of business development at
UM-services provider Bullen Inc., Eaton,
Ohio.
“As parts get smaller, the ability to put
more features on a substrate is key for
device manufacturers, enabling them to
be more efficient by minimizing material
costs and processing costs,” Fote
said. “When you can put hundreds or
thousands of features on a substrate at
one time, that reduces your costs—and
ultrasonic machining is a good way to
do that.”
The UM tool, typically made of steel,
has the negative (reverse) image of the
desired part features. A tool can have
hundreds or thousands of drill points
(pins). The machine ultrasonically energizes
the tool, and the flow of an abrasive,
water-based slurry is introduced
between the vibrating tool and the
workpiece. The vibrations from the tool
energize the abrasive, and the abrasive
removes workpiece material.
micromanufacturing.com | 11

TECHnews
UM is suitable for workpiece materials
with hardnesses greater than 40 HRC,
such as glass, graphite, sapphire, silicon,
quartz, ceramic composites and PCD.
Developed more than 50 years ago,
UM is a nonthermal, nonchemical and
nonelectrical process that:
n meets part tolerances as tight as
±0.001";
n can produce features from 0.008" to
several inches and aspect ratios as high
as 25:1, depending on the material type
and feature size; and
n machines a nearly limitless number
of microfeatures, including round,
square and odd-shaped through-holes,
cavities of varying depths, and other OD
and ID features.
UM is suitable for making micro-
machined and microstructured glass
wafers used to fabricate MEMS devices,
including pressure sensors, gyroscopes
and accelerometers, and implantable
sensors.
12 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
The growth potential for UM is outstanding,
according to Bullen’s Fote.
“The process is an enabling technology
and is an excellent fit to help device
manufacturers take full advantage of the
desirable properties of advanced materials
while reducing device size and, in
Bullen
Parts made
via ultrasonic
machining.
many cases, cost,” he said. µ
—Yesenia Salcedo
An animated video explaining how the
ultrasonic machining process works can
be found at www.bullentech.com/animation.—Ed.

MICROmachining By Alan Richter,
Senior Editor
Factors impacting surface finish
With their finishes measured in
microinches and microns, all
machined surfaces are “microscale.” However,
relative roughness decreases as parts get
smaller.
That decrease in surface roughness is
typically linear, according to John Bradford,
micromachining R&D team leader for
Makino Micromachining, Auburn Hills,
Mich. “If the size of the feature becomes five
or 10 times smaller, generally the surface
roughness would need to decrease by the
same factor,” he said.
Bradford noted two microscale
applications where a fine surface finish
is essential for part performance. One is
sensors, where the part’s surface interacts
Moore Nanotechnology Systems
A 2.3nm R a surface finish is imparted on an
aspheric micro lens array using a Nanotech
350UPM 3-axis CNC micromill from Moore.
with an adjacent surface, such as a crystal
mounted on a sensor, to signal a change in
the material condition or the condition of the
mating surfaces. “The flatness condition and
surface roughness condition are quite critical
to create the necessary bond between the two
materials,” he said.
The other application involves a machined
surface used for precisely locating an adjacent
material or shape. An example is a hole with a
top radius that provides a seating location for
a spherical locator. If the holes are the same,
except the radius roughness varies from hole
to hole, the spheres will be at different depths
and the critical features will locate differently
because they contact a varying number of
points, Bradford explained.
He added that finish variations impact
wear rates and lubrication properties, which
can change dramatically based on how much
oil a surface can hold.
Patrick Hurst, engineering manager for
Moore Nanotechnology Systems LLC,
Swanzey, N.H., emphasized the need for fine
surface finishes when machining micromolds
for producing lens arrays made of lenslets as
small as 1mm. The molds are primarily for
producing consumer optics, such as those in
cell phones. The company builds machines
for turning and milling parts for the optics
industry with single-flute, single-crystal
diamond tools that can impart milled surface
finishes as fine as 2.3nm to 5nm R a , according
to Hurst. “Many of the principles for standard
machining apply,” he said. “It’s just that the
decimal point moves over a few places.”
To impart such a fine surface, Moore
Nanotechnology machines have linear axes
with feedback resolution of 33 picometers
per count. “We can program surfaces down
to 0.01nm resolution,” Hurst said. “We couple
that high resolution with linear-motor drives
on our axes slides, hydrostatic bearings and
air bearings for the spindles. These factors, all
coupled together, provide extremely smooth
and stable motion profiles to create these
good surfaces.”
Because commercially available CAM
software programs don’t provide fine-enough
resolution to achieve the required surfaces,
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14 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
MICROmachining
according to Hurst, the company offers
its NanoCAM 3D programming and
analysis software as a machine option.
Matthias Reck, chief technology
officer for machine builder Datron AG,
Mühltal, Germany, concurred that end
users need to apply a single-crystal, or
monolithic, diamond tool to impart
the finest finishes when, for instance,
cutting aluminum. PCD tools, on the
other hand, have bonds between the
crystals that increase the roughness
of a machined surface. “For Plexiglass,
however, you can work with diamond
tools, polished single-flute tools or
CVD thick-film, diamond-coated tools
and get a perfect surface,” he said.
Reck added that it’s important for a
machine control to provide smoothing
functions, such as B-splines, to impart
smooth surfaces and eliminate surface
errors when changing cutting speeds.
To meet the stringent surface-finish
requirements of micromanufacturers,
Datron recently introduced the
C5 5-axis simultaneous milling
machine, which has a spindle speed
up to 48,000 rpm. The rotary swivel
axis, driven by dynamic torque motors,
reportedly ensures reproducibility
while maintaining high process
reliability.
The milling machine has linear
glass scales that provide a high level
of precision and eliminate thermal
effects, such as backlash and other
drive errors, according to Reck. And
to avoid having a change in the spindle
temperature negatively impact the
workpiece surface, a spindle should
have a tempering device that controls
temperature to better than ±0.1° C, he
added.
Makino’s Bradford agreed that sharp
temperature fluctuations during the
machining process are detrimental to
surface finish, especially if it occurs over
a short period. “If a total change of 5° F
happens over 2 to 3 days, that’s actually
not a significant issue,” he said.
It’s important to establish an error,
or tolerance, budget for surface finish
when micromachining, Bradford
emphasized. That enables a user to
determine if a machine has the basic
requirements to meet the finish
specification before beginning the job.
For example, if the machine has a
positioning repeatability of ±50nm,
the best surface finish it can impart
is 100nm, based on the high- and
low-positioning factors. And if the
cutting tool has an edge roughness of
30nm, the best surface roughness it can
generate is 30nm, so the error budget
increases to 130nm. Moreover, any
thermal growth in the spindle should
also be considered.
“If you’re trying to machine to a
surface roughness of 100nm, it is
ideal to have your machine provide
a repeatable positioning accuracy of
one-half to one-third that level—or
better,” Bradford said.
Hurst pointed out that surface
finish will only be as good as the
spindle’s size-of-error motion. “We’ve
determined that 50nm is what we can

Datron
A selection of microparts produced on Datron’s C5 simultaneous
5-axis milling machine.
achieve with our 60,000-rpm spindles,” he said. “If the error
motion is outside that realm, then it won’t achieve the best
surface finishes.”
Rather than buying a new machine if the error motion
is too large, a user should consider retrofitting. In addition
to retrofitting the spindle, Datron’s Reck noted that a better
spindle cooling system can help, along with other possibilities.
“If you have direct-tool clamping, you can change to an HSK
tooling interface when you change the spindle,” he said, adding
that switching to a microlubrication system for the cutting
tool will enhance micromachining accuracy.
Unlike a machining deviation that can hide in a rough
machined surface, any mismatch from one pass to the next
is easily noticed when machining with the tight step-overs
needed to impart a mirror-like finish. Such mismatches “stick
out like a sore thumb,” Bradford said. “It is imperative that the
machine tool has high repeatability from the start to the very
end of the process, because one [miniscule] deviation in the
tool tip position will change the characteristics of the surface
roughness and will create a very distinct line or pattern that
breaks the highly reflective surface.” µ
About the author: Alan Richter is a senior editor for
MICROmanufacturing. Telephone: (847) 714-0175. E-mail:
alanr@jwr.com.
micromanufacturing.com | 15

MEASUREMENT matters
Video measurement: lights, camera—progress
16 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
Having been in the manufacturing
industry for almost 20 years, specializing
in metrology, I have seen many changes
in video-measurement systems. The technology
has made great strides in recent years.
The addition of new system features has
changed how inspection personnel capture,
display and use images.
When I first joined the industry, videomeasurement
units (VMUs) ran on the
DOS operating system and system lighting
left much to be desired. Today, the systems
incorporate much better cameras, run on the
latest Windows operating systems and offer
LED-based lighting that is controllable and
repeatable.
Brighter picture today
Comparing today’s VMUs with their
predecessors, the most noticeable difference
is image size and clarity of the display.
All images: Scienscope
Out with the old, in with the new. Video
measurement began with units such as the one
at right with 9" monitors, metrology boxes and
black-and-white cameras. Modern VMUs (left)
come with touch screens, large monitors and
sophisticated software that improves accuracy and
ease of use.
Digital cameras that offer vibrant and bold
four-color images have replaced outdated
black-and-white cameras. Where once 9"
monitors were the largest that could be used,
today the only limit to monitor size is the
workspace available for it.
Cameras of the past had many weaknesses,
the biggest being the connector.
BNC (bayonet-style) connectors offered only
a mono signal. Then came RCA (phono)
connectors, where the image was split, then
put back together. (Something was always
lost in translation with these connectors.)
Today, USB connectors enable a direct
connection from the camera to the computer.
The downside to USB connectors is the
refresh rate isn’t as fast as when using highdefinition
multimedia interface (HDMI)
connectors, and neither is the clarity.
The next generation of video-measurement
machines will offer full HD images.
Using an HDMI connector, the user will
be able to transfer images directly from the
camera to a “frame grabber” card on the
measurement machine, allowing for the
clearest possible digital image to be displayed.
This will allow parts on the screen to be
seen as clearly as the images from a Blu-ray
disc player in a home theater system, and
will prove particularly advantageous for
inspecting microparts that might otherwise
be difficult to see.
Increasingly powerful computers and
monitors are now more affordable, which
has led to major improvements in videomeasurement
equipment. New systems have
touch screens. There are edge-detection
tools available that find features—and allow
users to measure them just by sliding a finger
across the screen. Also, users can choose a
one-button tool that allows them to measure
the contents of a circle on the screen.
The ability to measure parts accurately on
the display is a major innovation. With older
VMUs, a model of the part would be built in
a separate, geometric screen, where features
such as hole-to-hole locations, angles and
distances would be measured. In on-display
measurement, all the measurements are
listed right on the picture of the part. This is
a useful feature because the picture can be

sent to the customer, making it easier
to discuss any issues with the part or its
measurements.
The future is bright
LED is the future of lighting in
metrology. LEDs offer high brightness
but low power consumption. More
importantly, a typical LED lasts about
100,000 hours, so changing bulbs is rare.
LEDs can be calibrated to have
the same illumination level, making
illumination repeatable on videomeasurement
machines used in
different locations. Also, the ability to
control the angle of incidence of the
light source has helped image plastic
parts and cutting tools with complex
edges.
For inspecting micromachined
parts, today’s video systems provide
smart
machine
smart
grinding
LEDs, such as this top light for a VMU,
can be calibrated, making illumination
repeatable.
the clarity and accuracy of microscopes.
That, combined with current
computer-processing power and
trained operators, allows part recognition
and measurement to be performed
rapidly—up to nine measurements per
second, in some applications.
Even more impressive are the latest
video-imaging systems that incorporate
a telecentric lens with a camera
By Tim Feeley,
Scienscope
and powerful software that recognizes
the part, aligns it and measures it, all in
one shot.
We’ve come a long way from the
early days of video measurement, when
systems featured black-and-white
cameras and noisy fans laboring to
cool light boxes—a time when system
lighting could heat up the parts to the
point of setting them on fire! Today’s
systems offer vast improvements over
those from the past in terms of accuracy
and reliability, and future systems
promise to be even more accurate and
reliable. µ
About the author: Tim Feeley has
worked in manufacturing since 1995.
He is the Midwest regional manager for
Scienscope International, Chino, Calif.
Contact him at tfeeley@scienscope.com.
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micromanufacturing.com | 17

DOWNsizing
Silicon that goes pitter pat
18 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
Siemens
Doctors used an empty shoe polish tin to encase the first implantable pacemaker in epoxy resin. The
device (similar to the one pictured above) only lasted a few hours before it had to be replaced.
Though implantable pacemakers now
come in models as small as a half dollar,
rampant talk on the Internet promises a
future with devices that offer an exponential
reduction in size and cost—not to mention
reduced risk of infection.
To be sure, today’s pacemaker options
are dwarfed by the first such device ever
implanted. That Siemens-Elema pacemaker,
implanted in 1958, was the size of a shoe
polish tin.
The analogy isn’t as random as you
might think. Swedish developers Dr. Rune
Elmqvist, a physician working as an engineer
for Siemens-Elema, and Dr. Åke Senning, a
cardiologist and professor at the Korolinska
Hospital in Stockholm, took advantage of
emerging silicon technology to develop a
pacemaker small enough to be implanted.
Once assembled, they used an empty shoe
polish tin to encase all the components of the
pacemaker within epoxy resin.
During “a secret emergency operation on
Oct. 8, 1958,” the device was implanted into
43-year-old Arne Larsson, who was suffering
from a life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia,
according to a Web-based historical account
from Siemens AG, Munich.
As crude as such ingenuity may seem
today, there’s no need to feel sorry for
Larsson; he went on to enjoy an active
lifestyle, outliving even the men who saved
his life—Elmqvist and Senning. Larsson is
said to have had 26 pacemakers implanted
before his death in 2001 at age 86.
While Larsson’s first pacemaker used
just two transistors, pacemakers today
incorporate microprocessors with billions of
transistors. In fact, the programmable devices
are capable of wireless communications that
enable physicians to remotely monitor the
pacemakers and their patients.
For example, the Ingenio family of
pacemakers, launched in the European

market in April by Boston Scientific
Corp., Natick, Mass., is expected to be
able “to detect clinical events between
scheduled visits and send relevant data
directly to a secure physician-accessible
Web site via landline or cellular-based
telephone technology,” the company
announced April 10.
A key benefit of the new pacemaker
is its reported 14-year battery life,
nearly double the lifespan of an
average pacemaker battery, according
to an April 18 news release from The
James Cook University Hospital,
Middlesbrough, England, announcing
the first Ingenio pacemaker implanted.
“When your [pacemaker] battery
runs out, you have to have another
operation to replace it, and obviously
every time you have an operation
there’s the potential for complications,”
said Dr. Nick Linker, a consultant
cardiologist with The James Cook
University Hospital. “Having a battery
that lasts for 14 years means fewer
procedures and fewer complications.”
That’s good news for the more
than 3 million Americans who rely
on pacemakers to maintain a proper
heartbeat, not to mention the additional
400,000 people expected to receive
a pacemaker each year, according to
estimates from the American Heart
Boston Scientific
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in
May approved Boston Scientific’s Ingenio
family of pacemakers, which are slightly larger
than a half dollar. The first Ingenio implant in
the United States took place May 3.
Association.
Of course, pacemakers still include
lead wires that run from the pacemaker
in the chest to the heart. Unfortunately,
By Dennis Spaeth,
Electronic Media Editor
Design in CAD. Measure in CAD.
there’s a growing risk of bacterial infection
at the implant site and anywhere
along the lead wire. The results of a
continued on page 40
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micromanufacturing.com | 19

SWISSmachining By Kip Hanson,
Contributing Editor
Microboring: when drilling just won’t cut it
20 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
If the editor doesn’t change the font size on
me, the period at the end of this sentence
measures about 0.02" (0.5mm) across. It’s
tough to drill something that small or smaller,
but with a modern CNC Swiss-style machine
and the right drill bit, it’s doable.
But what if your customer wants a coupletenths
tolerance on that hole or an ultrafine
surface finish? Could you bore it?
You might if you could find a tool that
small. The boring bar would have to be
smaller than a 12-lb. fishing line, and even
if bars that small were made, they would be
hellishly expensive, right? Not really.
Utilis quick-change boring system.
GenSwiss
Dale Christopher, president of Scientific
Cutting Tools, Simi Valley, Calif., noted that
most of the small boring bars his company
offers cost less than a pair of movie tickets and
a bag of popcorn.
“A bar like a 1-8-5 (0.185" minimum bore) is
in the $23 range,” he said.
OK, but what if I need an ultrasmall
bar, one that could cut the cataracts out of
a bumblebee? Christopher consulted his
catalog. “Our smallest goes down to 0.015",
with a maximum depth of 0.05". That one’s
$28.74. It goes up a little because of how small
it is. They’re a bit harder to set up.”
A bit harder to set up? The failure rate
must be awfully high, grinding something that
small. “It’s not so much a high failure rate as
it is having to scrap out a few before you get
going,” said Christopher. “We make all our
tools in-house on Rollomatic CNC grinders.
When you set up your machine, you measure
your wheels as accurately as you can, but the
first tool never is going to come out exactly
right. So you throw that tool away, adjust your
machine and then you cut another. By the third
one, you should have everything dialed in.”
‘The first tool never is going
to come out exactly right.
By the third one, you should
have everything dialed in.’
So dialing in the grinding machine to make
these tools is no big deal, but what about
dialing in the lathe the tool runs on? You can
forget about achieving proper surface speed—
boring a 0.015" hole at even 200 sfm means
main-spindle speeds of over 50,000 rpm.
Boring at those speeds is just not possible.
And how do you find centerline when you can
barely even see the tool?
Again, Christopher explained, it’s not as
tough as it sounds. “Our tools have a small
locating flat on the top of the boring bar, and
we also offer sleeves with a backstop. So,
after you qualify the boring bar—usually on a
presetter or by using turret-mounted gages—
you can just take them in and out. You’ll be
real close.” And what about proper cutting
speed? “That’s limited by the machine tool. So
you just have to crank up your spindle as fast
as it will go and take light cuts, and that’s the
best you can do.”
Christopher also suggested using tools
coated with TiAlN, which improves tool wear
while retaining edge sharpness. “The nonstick
surface reduces edge buildup when you don’t
have the proper surface footage. Also, we use
a premium, submicron-grain carbide and put

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high-polish finishes on our tools. All of
this helps prevent chipping.”
Dale Newberry, president of MICRO
100, a toolmaker based in Meridian,
Idaho, agreed that high-quality carbide
is important, but said there’s more to
it than that. “Because of the strength
of our carbide, we’re able to run [the
tools] at lower surface speeds without
breaking the tools. We put our carbide
through a proprietary process that
increases the transverse-rupture
strength without losing hardness.
Normally with carbide, when one
(strength or hardness) goes up the
other goes down. But with this process,
we’re able to maintain both hardness
and strength.”
The right shape
Besides using high-quality carbide,
toolmakers must pay special attention
to geometry when grinding micro
22 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
boring tools.
“Everything changes in the small
tool,” explained Newberry. As bore sizes
decrease, the relative clearance angle
beneath the cutting edge increases
proportionately. Also, the lead angle of
the tool is typically flatter, so that on
flat-bottom bores you can avoid coming
across the bottom of the hole. “There’s
just no room for this when
boring a 0.02" hole.”
But if there’s no room,
why not just make a
smaller boring bar? “We
could do smaller. But there
hasn’t really been a call
for bars that small,” said
Scientific’s Christopher.
“You know, I’d probably
agree with that,” said
Scott LaPrade, marketing
manager at Genevieve
Swiss Industries Inc.,
Westfield, Mass. “I’ve had
some special requests here and there,
where maybe somebody had a really
small bore down at the bottom of a
countersink or something like that, but
I can’t remember the last time I fielded
a call where somebody was looking for
something smaller than the 0.016" bar
we currently offer.”
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FROM START TO PART TM

LaPrade is talking about the Swissmade
Utilis Multidec MicroBore boring
system, a slightly different animal than
other boring bars (see photo on page
20). “It’s a complete ID-working system
for Swiss-style machines,” meaning the
system grooves, profiles and internalthreads
diameters down to 1 ⁄16". LaPrade
added that Utilis is a quick-change
system, repeatable to within about
0.0004".
GenSwiss
Micro threading, boring and grooving tools.
This means there’s no presetting
required. “You don’t have to worry
about it,” he said. “The accuracy is
built into the tool shank, which has a
precision-ground angle mating against
a locating pin at the end of the shank.
So it always brings it back to the same
radial and axial location. This makes
it easy for even less-experienced
operators to change tools.”
Accurate tool orientation is
important, but what about feeds
and speeds? All of the toolmakers
interviewed here agree that typical
CNC lathes don’t have the spindle speed
necessary to achieve recommended
cutting speeds, and it’s pretty obvious
you have to go easy on depth of cut and
feed rate when boring holes this small.
Ron Gainer, Swiss-product manager
for machine seller REM Sales, Windsor,
Conn., said that micro boring is fussy
work. “Textbook feeds and speeds don’t
always apply,” he said. “Feed rates from
0.00005" per revolution to 0.0005" per
revolution are common for bores 0.02"
in diameter.”
One thing is clear: There are a
number of options available the next
time a customer calls for an impossibly
small precision-boring job. Provided
your Swiss-style lathe has the right
stuff, the tools are available to get the
job done. µ
About the author: Kip Hanson
is a contributing editor to
MICROmanufacturing. Telephone: (520)
548-7328.
micromanufacturing.com | 23

More than Meets the Eye
Eyewear that augments reality hitting the market
Cover Story
24 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
While the young man goes about the
business of a normal day, all kinds of
useful information—weather reports, walking
directions, travel alerts, appointment reminders,
messages from friends—appears right before his
eyes on the lenses of his glasses.
Pretty cool, right? Want to buy a pair? Sorry,
but you can’t—not yet, at least.
The above isn’t a description of the capabilities
of an actual product. Instead, it’s a partial
description of a video (available on YouTube) that
shows what might be possible someday as a result
of Google’s recently announced Project Glass.
Google’s announcement generated a buzz
about eyewear that supplements reality with
virtual content. The idea is to free up the hands
of wearers by delivering information directly
to their eyes. Such products have traditionally
been rather bulky and visually unappealing.
Today, however, Google and other companies
are trying to deliver added viewing content with
light, compact and stylish eyewear.
In addition to serving as the basis for
consumer products such as Google glasses,
this technology could be useful in commercial,
industrial, medical and military settings. For
By William Leventon, Contributing Editor
Innovega
The iOptik augmented reality system from Innovega combines contact lenses and glasses (see page 29).
The wearer sees both the surrounding environment and images projected onto the holographic lenses of
the glasses, as shown in this simulation.
example, it might be configured to show scenes
that include a real-world view as well as selected
virtual elements that help people do certain jobs.
So, with the right glasses, you would see
information about a task displayed right in the
task space, while your hands would be free to
do the work, noted Blair MacIntyre, director of
Georgia Tech’s Augmented Environments Lab.
MacIntyre differentiates between the
hypothetical Google glasses, which would
support a “heads-up display” (HUD) of
potentially useful information, and future
iterations of the technology that might support
true augmented reality (AR), enabling users to
view superimposed information and images.
“People who need access to virtual information
while using their hands for something else
can use HUDs,” MacIntyre said. Instructions
presented to machinists, “to-do” lists for
shopkeepers or cooks and detailed order-status
lists for waiters are just a few examples.
Also, context-sensitive information could be
presented to nurses and doctors in hospitals
via HUDs, such as 2-D lists of medical chart
information that might currently be displayed
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More than Meets the Eye continued
medical scans could be displayed directly
on patients.
HUD for winter sports
In the consumer space, one company
actually selling products that incorporate
this technology is Recon Instruments,
based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Released last fall, Recon’s Micro
Optics Display (MOD) and MOD
Live HUD products provide people
engaged in skiing, snowboarding and
snowmobiling navigation, performance
and communication data. The modular
products snap-fit into the frames of
alpine goggles made by about half a dozen
companies that partner with Recon,
according to Hamid Abdollahi, the firm’s
chief technology officer.
MOD’s full-color, widescreen
micro-LCD provides real-time
information such as speed, time, jump
airtime, GPS location, vertical and total
travel distance, temperature and altitude.
MOD Live offers all the same features, as
well as wireless smart-phone connectivity.
Recon’s HUDs feature a powerful
processor, numerous sensors and
advanced optics, according to the
company. The devices gather and process
data, which is then magnified by an ocular
lens to produce a virtual image for the
eye. The display, which measures about
6mm diagonally, is manufactured using
a proprietary microfabrication process.
Wearers of the HUD-equipped goggles
must look down to see the data-carrying
virtual images, just as the driver of a
car must look down to see information
displayed on the dashboard. This is to
avoid distracting wearers involved in
fast-paced activities that demand their
attention, Abdollahi explained.
Real augmented reality
Although useful, Recon’s products
don’t offer AR technology, which overlays
computer-generated images onto a real
scene.
An example of AR familiar to people
who watch football games on TV is the
virtual first-down line superimposed
on the actual football field. Another
example offered by MacIntyre is a virtual
restaurant review attached to the front
of the restaurant itself. In both cases, the
26 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
Recon Instruments
Recon Instruments’ MOD Live is a “heads-up” display for alpine goggles and provides skiers
and riders with real-time information.
virtual images don’t just float randomly
before your eyes; they are integrated into
your real-world view.
Though the Google glasses have been
described as AR technology, the images
released of what the glasses might look
like don’t show displays that appear
capable of delivering an AR experience
as MacIntyre defines it.
Then there’s the question of the
potential market. “When you look at
the Google Glass video, it seems cool
that you can do all those little things,”
MacIntyre said. “But would you really
keep that piece of eyewear on all the time
just for that? I don’t think the collection
of applications you saw in the video
would be enough to drive significant
adoption of this kind of display.”
Unlike Google, Vuzix Corp. already
has AR eyewear on the market. The
company’s latest AR development is its
SMART Glasses technology, scheduled
for release in product form later this year.
Vuzix
Vuzix will release its new SMART
augmented-reality glasses in both binocular
(above) and monocular versions (left).
Contributors
Georgia Tech Augmented
Environments Lab
http://ael.gatech.edu/lab/
Innovega Inc.
(425) 516-8175
innovega-inc.com
Recon Instruments
(604) 638-1608
www.reconinstruments.com
Vuzix Corp.
(585) 359-5900
www.vuzix.com
Designed to fit into the temples and
lenses of a conventional pair of glasses,
the technology includes a compact
display engine capable of high contrast

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More than Meets the Eye continued
and brightness for outdoor use, according
to Vuzix, Rochester, N.Y. Output from the
display engine goes into a thin polymer
waveguide lens with hologram structures
on the surface that move the light along
the waveguide, then expand images into
the wearer’s real-world view.
Based in part on technology licensed
from Nokia Corp., the system will allow
Vuzix to reduce its display-lens thickness
from about 1cm to 1.4mm. As a result,
the company’s new glasses will weigh
considerably less than its current AR
offerings, according to Clark Dever, the
firm’s marketing director.
Vuzix plans to offer its SMART
Glasses technology in lines of monocular
and binocular products for commercial,
Receiving infoRmation fRom youR
glasses is a pretty radical concept,
but what about having that information
displayed directly on your eyeballs? That
could happen. According to a recent
paper, researchers at the University of
Washington have demonstrated the safety
of a prototype wireless visual-display lens
tested in a live rabbit’s eye.
The testing verifies that antennas, radio
chips, control circuitry and microscale
light sources can be integrated into
a contact lens worn by animals and,
presumably, humans, according to
the paper, which was co-authored by
Babak Parviz, an associate professor of
electrical engineering at the University of
Washington.
Building the lens required circuits
made from metal that was only a few
nanometers thick and LEDs 0.33mm in
diameter. To help focus the images, arrays
of tiny lenses were inserted into the
contacts.
The lens contains only a single pixel of
information, but if more pixels could be
added, the lens could display information
such as text messages and be used in
conjunction with devices such as GPS
navigation systems and gaming devices.
As of now, the working model will only
function if the wireless power-transmitting
antenna and the receiving antenna on the
lens are in very close proximity to each
28 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
Innovega
The iOptik contact lens from Innovega.
industrial and consumer markets (see
page 26). Dever reports that monocular
SMART Glasses should be shipping to
industrial and defense clients later this
year.
Next year, a two-lens consumer version
With smart contact lenses, seeing is believing
University of Washington
Animal testing verifies that electronic devices can be
integrated into a wearable contact lens. Shown is a smart
contact lens placed in a rabbit’s eye.
Sensimed
other (about 2cm). Increasing that distance
will make the model more functional.
According to Parviz, a contact lens
capable of augmented-reality functions is
years away.
of the glasses is scheduled to be released.
This product, designed to look like a pair
of designer sunglasses, will probably sell
for between $350 and $600, a fraction
of the cost of the industrial versions,
according to Dever. Like the glasses in
the Google video, these glasses will give
wearers hands-free access to all sorts of
useful information as they go about their
business, according to the company.
Further away still from market-ready
status is the iOptik display system, AR
eyewear technology being developed
by Innovega Inc., Bellevue, Wash. With
special optics incorporated into contact
lenses that sit on the eye, the system
can provide a wide field of view without
the bulky glasses or helmets that would
normally be required to produce such
a view, according to Randall Sprague,
“For commercial
applications, each
aspect needs further
development, but there
should be no impassable
technical barriers,” said Dr.
Sami Suihkonen, a scientist
from the Aalto University
School in Finland, who is
collaborating with Parviz
and others on the project.
“Our prototypes have
been assembled manually,
making it difficult to take
this product, as is, to
larger-scale production,”
he said.
Parviz’s team is also
working on a lens that
can monitor the blood
sugar levels of people
with diabetes. Coupled
with a wireless data
transmitter, the lens could
relay medical information
instantly.
The development
timeline for these lenses
is not yet clear. “There are
still many technical issues to be resolved,
including sensor stability and creating a
complete and reliable communication link,”
Parviz said. He stressed that collecting
medical data from the eye is one thing, but
The Sensimed
Triggerfish sensor
has a diameter of
14.1mm and records
data for 30 seconds
every 5 minutes
during a 24-hour
period.

Innovega’s chief technology officer.
The contact lenses feature tiny optical
filters that enhance normal eye functions
to allow the viewing of virtual images.
These devices include aluminum wires
measuring about 100nm wide and spaced
about 200nm apart.
In addition to the contact lenses, the
iOptik system includes compact glasses
with reflectors consisting of a special
membrane with structures measuring just
tens of microns across. Attached to the
glasses are a pair of small image projectors
located near the temples of the wearer.
The wearer sees both the surrounding
environment and images projected onto
the holographic lenses of the glasses.
At present, Innovega is developing
stereoscopic AR eyewear MICRO with a 90º field
of view. The company Manufacturing
hopes to have a
Bill Klingler
847-714-0186
4.5X7.5
knowing what it means or how to use it to
help a patient is much more difficult.
Although medical lenses are still
in development, the Swiss company
Sensimed AG has developed its own
contact lens. Designed to improve
treatment for people with glaucoma,
Sensimed’s Triggerfish is a lens used for
continuous monitoring of fluctuations
in intraocular pressure. With a circular
strain gage, antenna and microprocessor,
the device wirelessly transmits data to a
receiver.
Triggerfish is not fully commercialized—
currently it’s being used only at select
and closely controlled centers in Europe
and a few other countries outside Europe.
It is not yet approved for sale in the
U.S., according to Jean-Marc Wismer,
Sensimed’s CEO.
However, doctors and researchers at
the University of California’s Shiley Eye
Center, San Diego, launched the first
large-scale clinical trials of Triggerfish in
the U.S. in 2011.
Wismer could not say how long it
will take for the product to reach full
commercializaion, but some progress
is being made to bring it to the U.S.
Sensimed is in the process of applying
for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, which it hopes to obtain
by the end of 2012.
—Yesenia Salcedo
beta-level product ready by 2014.
To a large extent, Sprague said, the ways
Innovega’s products are eventually used
depends on the companies that will write
software applications to take advantage
of the hardware. “We’re advancing the
state of the display hardware that enables
augmented reality. But nobody really
knows how people are going to use that
hardware. Just like 5 years ago, did anyone
imagine what you do on your smartphone
today? Probably not.” µ
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About the author:
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He has a M.S. in
Engineering from
the University of
Pennsylvania and a B.S.
in Engineering from Temple University.
Telephone: (609) 926-6447. E-mail:
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micromanufacturing.com | 29

No Mass Appeal—Yet
Additive manufacturing slowly gains acceptance as mass-production option
30 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
Things look good for additive manufacturing.
AM technologies have never offered better
performance, and demand for them has never
been greater. Large companies and the U.S.
government are interested.
So is the mainstream media, which has been
covering AM a lot lately. One notable example
is the inclusion of AM in a special report in
The Economist entitled “The third industrial
revolution.”
Unlike subtractive techniques, which
remove material from a workpiece, additivemanufacturing
processes join materials to
make objects. Guided by 3-D CAD data, AM
systems usually stack thin layers of plastic, metal
or composites, making the processes suitable
for producing almost any shape or feature,
including those difficult, or impossible, to make
via conventional manufacturing processes.
In many cases, AM can fabricate complex and
precise features without secondary operations,
which saves time and money, noted Bill Booth,
vice president of market development for
Microfabrica Inc., an AM firm in Van Nuys,
Calif.
By William Leventon, Contributing Editor
FineLine Prototyping made these 316L stainless steel jaws via selective laser melting.
FineLine Prototyping
AM processing also consumes less material
than subtractive methods, which proves
especially advantageous when producing parts
from high-cost materials. And, AM can fabricate
monolithic parts that incorporate moving
components.
In 2011, the compound annual growth
rate for additive manufacturing was nearly 30
percent, according to a recent report by Wohlers
Associates, a Fort Collins, Colo., consulting
firm that follows AM trends. The firm sees the
industry’s strong growth continuing during
the next several years, with global sales of AM
products and services surpassing $6.5 billion
by 2019.
Despite the rosy picture, a longstanding
question remains: Is AM ready to move beyond
its rapid-prototyping (RP) roots and take a
place beside traditional mass-production
technologies?
Holding AM back
At present, AM is still widely considered to
be more of a one-off, rapid-prototyping process
than a mass-manufacturing option. One reason

is the relatively high cost of making AM
parts.
“Even to make small parts, you’re
talking about a sizable investment for
the machine and the know-how,” said
Terry Wohlers, president of Wohlers
Associates.
In almost every case, high-volume
AM production is more expensive than
the alternatives because it requires more
time on more-expensive equipment,
according to Rob Connelly, president of
FineLine Prototyping Inc., Raleigh, N.C.,
which uses AM processes to make both
prototypes and end-use parts.
“An item on the ‘to-do’ list of all manufacturers
of [AM] technologies is to create
pathways to get their processes to work
on a more cost-effective basis,” he said.
Another AM disadvantage is manufacturing
speed. With most AM systems, a
beam—laser or electron—defines a 2-D
layer of the part’s perimeter and features
in a liquid or powder. Defining one thin
layer at a time, a 3-D object is built from
the bottom up. That can be a timeconsuming
process.
AM is a “whole lot faster than making
a mold and then making 50 parts,” said
Wohlers. “But if you’re making 500,000
parts, molding can be faster, even if you
include the time it takes to make the
mold.”
On the other hand, he added, the
smaller the part, the faster it can be
In many cases, AM can fabricate
complex and precise features
without secondary operations,
which saves time and money.
built using AM. That makes AM more
competitive in the micro realm.
On the downside, surface finish
can be problematic at the microscale.
Selective laser sintering, for example, has
made major strides in recent years, but
Connelly pointed out that parts made
using the process have a rough texture.
“And when you scale down to a size of
8mm or less, that texture can really take
over, preventing you from getting the
tiny features and tight tolerances that
are required.”
Sometimes, though, microscopic
surface roughness is an advantage,
noted Arthur Chait, president of
EoPlex Technologies Inc., an AM
firm in Redwood City, Calif. It can, for
example, facilitate bonding. “Think of
the instructions on a bottle of glue,
where it says to rough up
the surface before you
glue it,” Chait said. For
that reason, some microroughness
is advantageous
for the semiconductor
packaging products made
using EoPlex’s AM process.
Still, any product that requires a very
smooth surface is probably not a good
candidate for AM, unless it’s only the
top and bottom layers that need to be
very smooth. AM is capable of making
these layers smoother, but they still are
not likely to be as smooth as machined
or molded parts, Chait said, adding that
sintering processes like that employed by
EoPlex can bring surface roughness down
to 0.5µin. to 2µin. Ra.
As for the other sides of objects
produced using AM, the problem is the
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32 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
Microfabrica
This 2mm iris for an endoscopy visualization device was manufactured by Microfabrica via
the MICA Freeform process, which eliminates the need for assembly.
No Mass Appeal—Yet continued
layered structure of the objects. Think,
for example, of the sides of a ream of
paper. “No matter how thin the paper is
and how well aligned the edges are, the
surface made from these stacked layers
will never be as smooth as a machined
surface,” Chait explained.
According to Chait, another situation
that presents problems for AM is parts
that need to be made from more than one
material. “In developing our technology,
we’ve learned that [only a few] materials
can be processed together, and usually
we have to create these custom materials
ourselves,” he said. The reason: different
materials have different properties and
characteristics and, as a result, require
different—sometimes very different—
processing parameters.
In Connelly’s view, the main thing
holding additive manufacturing back
has been the inferior properties of the
materials used to fabricate AM parts,
compared to the properties of materials
designers specify for products made
by conventional methods. Consider,
he said, the case of stereolithography,
an AM technique that can produce
very smooth surfaces. In recent years,
the material properties of parts made
via stereolithography have improved
significantly but still don’t measure up to
injection-molded equivalents.
On the other hand, he said, the
evolution of metal AM processes “has
really gotten material properties up there
neck and neck” with those normally
found in end-use products.
‘Groundswell of interest’
Perhaps this is one reason Connelly has
noticed “a groundswell of interest” in using
additive-manufacturing technologies
for more than just prototyping. He
attributes a large part of it to recent AM
success stories, which are being heard by
designers and manufacturers who hadn’t
previously thought of AM as a viable
production option.
At Microfabrica, executives have
Contributors
EoPlex Technologies Inc.
(650) 361-9070
www.eoplex.com
FineLine Prototyping Inc.
(919) 781-7702
www.finelineprototyping.com
Microfabrica Inc.
(818) 786-3322
www.microfabrica.com
Wohlers Associates Inc.
(970) 225-0086
wohlersassociates.com

noticed the same thing. The company has doubled its revenue
every year for the last 3 years, and it increased its capacity by
more than 400 percent during that time, reported Eric Miller,
president of the firm.
How does Miller account for his firm’s growth? State-ofthe-art
micromachining can’t give companies currently in the
electronics, aerospace and medical industries access “to the
next level of miniaturization,” he claimed. “Our MICA Freeform
technology offers precision at a very small scale,” he said, adding
that the “sweet spot” for the technology is the production of
parts with dimensions measuring 2mm or smaller.
According to Miller, MICA Freeform can process metals
that offer excellent hardness, tensile strength and ductility.
In addition, the system now can handle palladium, a lessexpensive
alternative to platinum that has helped Microfabrica
grow its implantable medical-device business. During the last
3 years, growth in certain market segments has also come from
MICA Freeform’s ability to combine metals into sophisticated
composites.
In addition to private-sector advances, another boost to AM
acceptance could come from an initiative announced in March
by President Obama. According to Obama, his administration
plans to launch a “Pilot Institute for Manufacturing Innovation”
focused on AM technology. Up to $45 million in federal
funding has been made available for the institute. The project
aims to turn AM-related equipment and processes that aren’t
fully developed into commercially viable technologies, as well
as develop AM expertise and ways to measure that expertise,
according to Wohlers.
ETA for mass acceptance?
So, how long before AM finds widespread use for the
production of microscale parts?
Connelly thinks it could be 5 to 10 years, given the pace
of additive-manufacturing advancements and the fact that
microparts are the right size for cost-effective AM production.
In Chait’s opinion, it’s a mistake to ask when AM processes
will be commonly used for manufacturing. Instead, he
predicted AM technology will be adopted in selective cases—
specifically, those where it offers enough advantages to supplant
a conventional process.
“Where there’s a good application for [AM], it will win,” he
said, adding, “we have found (an application) where it’s likely
to make the old technology obsolete.”
Chait was referring to EoPlex's xLC semiconductor packaging
products, which are fabricated by the company's AM process,
High Volume Print Forming (HVPF). While many small AM
products are made up of hundreds of deposited layers, the
xLC substrate is only about 50µm high and requires just four
or five layers.
The xLC substrate is designed to open up new application
possibilities for Quad Flat No-Lead semiconductor packages
and is a replacement for conventional metal leadframes. HVPF
replaces a well-established semiconductor etching and plating
process, thereby eliminating the need for “environmentally
unfriendly” etching and plating chemicals, Chait said. Also, efficient
use of space creates more room for package sites, lowering
the price per package site 20 percent to 30 percent below that
EoPlex
The High Volume Print Forming process is used by EoPlex to make
the xLC semiconductor package (right). HVPF replaces a wellestablished
semiconductor etching and plating process used to
make the conventional metal leadframe at left.
of leadframes.
Chait reported that EoPlex will soon open a new factory in
Malaysia to produce the xLC packaging products. Plans call for
a second plant to be built afterward in the Philippines. These
factories will be capable of turning out hundreds of thousands
of xLCs per week, he said. µ
About the author: William Leventon is a
contributing editor for MICROmanufacturing.
He has a master’s in Engineering from the
University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s in
Engineering from Temple University. Telephone:
(609) 926-6447. E-mail: wleventon@verizon.
net.
Visit us at IMTS Booth #W1352
micromanufacturing.com | 33

Power Scavengers
The market for energy-harvesting products powers up
34 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
Every 2 weeks the founder and chief technology
officer of MicroGen Systems, a
developer of energy-harvesting technologies,
drives about 6 hours from the company’s Ithaca,
N.Y., headquarters to the Boston area to see his
son. As he heads down Interstate 90, Robert
Andosca doesn’t let the radio interfere with the
hum of the road and his own thoughts.
“All I do is think,” Andosca said. “So, I’m just
thinking and thinking about these problems and
University of Michigan
A 1.5-cu.-mm intraocular pressure sensor to aid
glaucoma patients developed by the University of
Michigan is powered by harvesting light that enters
the eye through the cornea. The IOP contains an
integrated solar cell, thin-film Li battery, MEMS
capacitive sensor, wireless transceiver and ICs
vertically assembled in a biocompatible glass
housing.
I’ve come up with so many ideas.”
The “problems” have to do with the bumps
and vibrations endured by his tires every mile he
drives. There is a great deal of energy in all that
punishment his wheels endure; he is looking for
a way to scavenge and harness it.
Andosca predicts that by 2016 his
company will be selling an energy solution
for MEMS-based systems for monitoring tire
pressure. He hopes to latch onto the growing,
government-mandate-fueled market for tire-
By Howard Lovy
pressure-monitoring systems (TPMS) and a
growing need to find a way to power the tiny
devices.
Tires will be the driver that will allow
MicroGen to produce the volume necessary—
about 50 million units per year—to eventually
sell each energy-harvesting unit for $1. That,
Andosca said, will open up the company’s
energy-harvesting products to other applications
and markets.
According to market research firm IDTechEx,
the market for energy harvesting and storage is
a potentially lucrative one for companies that
can meet the various challenges involved in
gathering and using power from the physical
environment.
IDTechEx researchers Peter Harrop and
Raghu Das write that energy-harvester sales are
expected to reach $18 million in 2012 for wireless
sensor applications alone. That number is
expected to climb to $4 billion in 2021.
MicroGen’s piezoelectric harvesters specialize
in converting vibration generated by everything
from tires to clothes dryers into power that
can be harnessed and used for other purposes.
According to Andosca, MicroGen is in discussions
with a major appliance company regarding
the product.
But vibration is not the only source of ambient
energy. Other types of devices include those that
harvest radio-frequency (RF) signals from dedicated
transmitters or ambient sources such as
mobile phones; thermal energy, or heat, generated
by differences in temperature between an
object and the ambient air; and photovoltaic
approaches that convert ambient natural and
artificial light into electricity.
While these methods of harvesting energy
are not new, the market for them is expected
to explode.
Driving growth is the need and popularity of
“green” technologies that save energy. Another
factor is technological innovation that has
improved the ability of devices to collect and
translate ambient energy into usable power,
along with a push for further integration of
“connected” objects and ubiquitous computing,
typically referred to as “the Internet of things.”
The IoT will fail to reach its full potential

if ambient energy can’t be reliably and
continuously transformed into power.
Always-connected objects can never run
out of energy.
Harvesting partnerships
An energy-harvesting device alone is
not useful without the support of other
elements. These include a microcon-
troller, a power-storage unit (battery or
ultracapacitor) and the ability to receive
information about when and how to use
that energy.
That is why more energy-harvesting
partnerships are being formed among
companies that specialize in one area or
another. “It’s almost harder to find somebody
who’s not working with somebody
else,” said Randy Frank, president of
Randy Frank & Associates Ltd., a Scottsdale,
Ariz., marketing firm specializing
in technology communications.
“One might specialize in microcontrollers,
another in batteries or
ultracapacitors for storage and another
in power management,” Frank continued.
“There’s a kind of mix-and-match going
on of companies and technologies looking
to complement one another in managing
power from harvested energy.”
Cymbet Corp. is one company that
offers products designed to manage
harvested energy. The Elk River, Minn.based
company produces the EnerChip,
a 1mm 3 , solid-state power-management
system that gathers, converts, stores and
manages virtually all the energy output
by harvesting devices such as solar cells
and thermoelectric generators.
“Every joule is critical; every microjoule
is critical,” said Steven Grady, vice
president of marketing at Cymbet.
Salvaging every microjoule is not an
easy task. For example, Grady points to an
intraocular pressure sensor designed by
researchers at the University of Michigan
that incorporates Cymbet’s EnerChip
(see photo on page 34). The device will
eventually be used to help glaucoma
patients. The MEMS-based pressure
sensor contains a microprocessor, solar
cell and wireless transceiver in a device
that is a mere 1.5mm × 2mm.
Designers of this tiny device face
several challenges, including converting
energy from the solar cell. The company
has achieved a conversion rate of about
22 percent, Grady said. The next step is
The ‘problems’ have to do with the bumps and
vibrations endured by his tires every mile he
drives. There is a great deal of energy in all that
punishment his wheels endure.
taking the energy converted by the transducer
and making it accessible to the
system, which creates all sorts of opportunities
for energy to be lost. Since light
sources are variable, energy storage has
to be close to 100 percent. Any power
leakage would render the unit almost
useless.
How a system handles the small
amount of energy harvested is the “secret
Infinite Power Solutions
A Thinergy micro-energy cell from Infinite Power Solutions.
The paper-thin, solid-state, rechargeable energy-storage
device can be used with all forms of ambient energyharvesting
techniques for recharging, including solar, thermal,
RF, magnetic and vibratory.
sauce” most energy-harvesting designers
keep close to their vests. But the payoff
is potentially huge for those companies
able to bring highly efficient harvesters to
market, because the demand for batteries
that never need replacing is expected to
surge.
There are several key markets for
energy-harvesting devices, including
implanted medical devices, where it isn’t
possible to change the battery; military
applications, where it is dangerous to do
so; energy and lighting controls; and freestanding
security devices.
Consumer products, Grady said, are
still not much of a market because having
to change batteries is not a drawback with
most products.
Growing trend
Tim Bradow, vice president of
marketing for one of Cymbet’s competitors,
Infinite Power Solutions (IPS),
Littleton, Colo., recalled a day in 2007
when he stood in front of a group of 400
investors at a summit and bragged that
IPS had developed an infinitely rechargeable,
solid-state battery able to collect
ambient energy and power an electronic
device for decades.
“They almost laughed me off the stage,”
Bradow said. “There were hecklers in the
crowd, and there were hecklers in the
investment panel in the front.”
About 5 years later, energy-harvesting
symposiums are held around the
globe and the attendees don’t laugh at
pronouncements such as Bradow’s.
Like Cymbet, IPS
specializes in managing
the trickle of power gathered
by energy harvesters.
“You trickle that energy
in, and you blast it out,”
Bradow said. IPS works
closely with Maxim integrated
semiconductor
products to boost lowvoltage
energy output by
photovoltaic or thermoelectric
harvesters.
According to Bradow,
IPS accomplishes this
task by making its solidstate
batteries from an
inorganic compound
that does not eat away
at the battery as does
the “chemical stew” in lithium-ion or
nickel-cadmium batteries. The company
uses lithium-phosphorus oxynitride, or
LiPON.
Bradow is excited about the prospects
for energy harvesting as they
apply to distributed wireless sensors.
With a new wireless standard, Bluetooth
4.0, replacing disparate older versions,
soon everybody’s handheld devices will
micromanufacturing.com | 35

Power Scavengers continued
become a “gateway” to communicate
with sensors everywhere. (This leads to
the kind of ubiquitous computing that
has been “around the corner” for at least
a decade.)
Bradow cited the
example of a child
wearing a bandage that
can monitor temperature
and other vital signs
and transmit that data
to a doctor’s mobile
phone. However, what is
being harvested from the
ambient environment is
not enough power to charge the cell
phone itself.
Harry Ostaffe, vice president of
marketing and business development at
Powercast, a Pittsburgh-based company
that specializes in RF harvesting for
sensor applications, said one of the mostdifficult
parts of his job is explaining to
potential customers that they cannot use
ambient RF energy to charge their laptops
or cell phones. What RF harvesting does
36 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
is add functionality to otherwise “dumb”
RFID tags. The technology also is suitable
for “trickle charging” batteries in
items that might spend months or years
in storage.
One day, Powercast’s technology also
could power ePaper displays at super-
markets that display prices or other text.
“We certainly hope to see an installed
base in OEM designs and actual deployment
of our technology in millions of
units,” Ostaffe said. “With our new chipset,
the total material cost to implement our
[RF energy-harvesting] technology for 1
million pieces, for example, is less than
$2 (per unit).”
Prices like that will make energy
harvesting more attractive, especially
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How a system handles the small
amount of energy harvested is
the ‘secret sauce’ most energyharvesting
designers keep close
to their vests.
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everyone around the world
can easily access our
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for energy-efficient lighting and heating
applications.
According to Jim O’Callaghan, North
American president of Germany-based
EnOcean, it’s a challenge to develop a
system that is designed from the start
with energy efficiency in mind. As an
analogy, he said Chevy did not take a
standard car, put batteries in it and call
it a Volt. Chevy engineers had to rethink
the entire concept of how a car is made.
On the road again
On that note, let's return to Microgen
and Robert Andosca, driving from
Ithaca to Boston, thinking about all the
harsh conditions tires are subjected to
throughout the U.S. Tire temperatures
can range from -40° F in Minnesota to
more than 180° F on desert highways in
the Southwest.
Then there’s the shock of each bump.
Contributors
Cymbet Corp.
(763) 633-1792
www.cymbet.com/
EnOcean Inc.
www.enocean.com
(801) 943-3215
Randy Frank & Associates Ltd.
(480) 998-1261
www.randyfrank.net
IDTechEx
+44 1256 862163
www.idtechex.com/
Infinite Power Solutions
(303) 749-4800
www.infinitepowersolutions.com
MicroGen Systems Inc.
(617) 447-1876
www.microgensystems.com
Powercast Corp.
(412) 923-4774
www.powercastco.com

It’s not easy to build an energy harvester that can handle that
kind of harsh environment. Armed with some new patents
dealing with piezoelectric vibrational energy harvesting,
MicroGen has begun to solve the problem, according to
Andosca.
MicroGen’s BOLT-J power generator (the “J” is for “jiggle”)
reportedly can harness power from many different types of
inputs. In the context of a tire, it absorbs shock and converts
it to electricity, capturing energy from a wide spectrum of
frequencies. And, he said, it’s small. Ultimately, the device will
be installed in a 5mm × 5mm × 5mm box.
Chevy did not take a standard car,
put batteries in it and call it a Volt.
Chevy engineers had to rethink the
entire concept of how a car is made.
“Our overall goal is to completely eliminate the battery,”
Andosca said. “We believe we can do that. Our technology
is broadband, low-G (G-force, or gravity force, is used to
measure acceleration and can measure small changes), can
deal with temperature variation, and it’s small, low-cost and
able to handle the shocks that a tire experiences. So we meet
all the criteria.”
Beyond that, Andosca said, the technology will allow for a
cold start. If a car sits idle for a month, there needs to be a way
to kick-start the TPMS if it’s being run without a battery. The
initial vibration of the engine might be sufficient to get the unit
going, though it hasn’t been tested yet.
He added that “major players” in the TPMS market are
approaching MicroGen.
“The companies that we’re talking to right now are on an accelerated
schedule,” Andosca said. “They want something in cars in
4 years. We will be in cars in 2016. I can guarantee that.” Not
only that, he said MicroGen will be “very strongly in the marketplace.”
µ
RF IN
Powerharvester Receiver
CAP GND
V OUT
RESETINT DSET DOUT Data/RSSI
Powercast
A Lifetime Power energy-harvestingdevelopment
kit from Powercast for
battery charging includes a 3w Powercaster
transmitter, a P2110 Powerharvester receiver
evaluation board (see schematic), battery
charging board, Thinergy micro-energy cell
evaluation card, TI wireless development
tool and other accessories.
About the author: Howard Lovy is a freelance
writer specializing in science, technology
and innovation. He is based in Traverse City,
Mich. Telephone: (231) 620-2730. E-mail:
howardlovy@gmail.com.
micromanufacturing.com | 37
IMTS picasso ad MM.indd 1 5/7/12 6:59 PM

Prickly Situation
Makers of microneedles face challenges bringing product to market
38 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
Sanofi Pasteur’s intradermal flu vaccine system incorporates a 1.55mm-long microneedle.
FluGen Inc. was founded in 2007 with a
simple-sounding mission: To generate flu
vaccines “that actually work” for older people,
said Paul Radspinner, CEO of the Madison, Wis.based
company. “Flu vaccines are notoriously
ineffective the older you get,” he said.
That’s because of a phenomenon called
immunosenescence, a decline of the immune
system that affects everyone as they age.
However, the skin ages less rapidly. If you stimulate
the skin with a vaccine, you get a much
stronger immune response than you would
through traditional vaccine delivery.
That’s why FluGen turned to developing
microneedles, a technology best suited to deliver
vaccines to the skin without penetrating it.
Hundreds of needles can be placed on a single
patch. They’re pain-free because they don’t hit
nerve endings, and they can deliver precise
drug dosages.
However, while research on microneedles
has been promising, there are few devices on
the market today. Even large companies, such
as Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) and
3M, have been stymied in their efforts to bring
microneedles to market.
“The large companies are having some of
the same challenges as the small companies—
getting these microneedles to work efficiently,”
Radspinner said. “There’s been a lot of talk about
By Howard Lovy
Sanofi Pasteur
these needles for years, but not a lot of success.”
In fact, the only microneedle product on the
market that can be called a success is Sanofi
Pasteur’s Fluzone influenza vaccine system,
which features a 1.5mm-long microneedle
developed and licensed by BD. The outer
diameter of the needle is 0.305mm. Fluzone
incorporates a single metal needle, not a patch
with hundreds of microneedles.
Initially, Radspinner said, it was thought that
microneedles could only be made from metal.
Metal needles, though, are difficult to shape.
Plastic was considered unsuitable as a material
because it couldn’t be formed to a sharp enough
point, and there was the potential problem of
flash, or excess plastic, being left in the skin.
Radspinner said that FluGen, working with an
undisclosed partner, has found a way to make
its 1.5mm-long needle arrays out of medicalgrade
plastic through injection micromolding.
“They are amazingly clean, pointed and very
effective,” he said.
Five years in the making, the needle array
should be in Phase I clinical trials in the next 8
or 9 months, according to Radspinner.
Manufacturing research
Etching, micromolding and deposition are
three of the most common ways microneedles
are fabricated.

Seong-O Choi, a postdoctoral fellow
at the Georgia Institute of Technology,
is working with many materials and
methods in his research into fabricating
microneedle arrays. The simplest method
involves an infrared laser cutting a 2-D,
drug-coated, 70 µm-thick metal sheet.
Another method involves molding
microneedles. First, a “master” structure
is fabricated using various techniques,
such as silicon etching or multi-directional
photolithography. A micromold is
then made by casting a material, typically
polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), onto the
master, creating a “negative” of it.
Once a PDMS mold is prepared, materials
such as carboxymethyl cellulose
(CMC) or polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) are
cast in the mold. These water-soluble
materials are dissolved and the water/
material solution is inserted into the mold
by centrifugal force or vacuum.
The water evaporates, leaving the
polymer (CMC or PVA) in the form of
water-soluble microneedles. After being
inserted into the skin, these needles
dissolve.
“Compared to drug-coated microneedles,
dissolving microneedles can
encapsulate more drugs because they
are composed of matrix materials (CMC
or PVA) and drugs,” Choi said. “A highervolume
fraction of the microneedle can
be used for drug encapsulation.”
In some cases, he said, the microneedle
structure can be made out of the drug
itself. However, the drug must be mixed
with an excipient (inert substance),
such as CMC, to enhance mechanical
microneedle rigidity because it must
pierce the skin without breaking.
“The efficacy of drugs decreases during
the fabrication process since there is a
phase change—liquid to solid,” said Choi.
“Therefore, we are working on enhancing
the stability of drugs during the fabrication
process and storage by changing
filling methods and drug formation.”
Choi is also experimenting with
applying electrical fields to microneedles,
allowing them to deliver DNA-based
drugs directly into skin cells. This process
is called “electroporation.”
“We envisioned that it would be
possible to deliver DNA-based drugs
into skin cells using microneedles if the
microneedle itself can act as an electrode,”
Choi said. “We fabricated electrically
Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of Chemistry
Scanning-electron-microscopy images of hollow
polymer microneedles made via two-photon
polymerization. (a) Image of individual microneedle
obtained at 45º tilt. (b) Image of individual
microneedle obtained at 0º tilt. The length and
base diameters of these microneedles are 508µm
(±33µm) and 212µm (±3µm), respectively.
FluGen
FluGen makes its 1.5mm-long needle arrays out of
medical-grade plastic via injection micromolding.
active microneedle arrays and tested
their mechanical and electrical functionality
in-vitro, and we are now preparing
in-vivo tests.”
2PP approach
Another method of manufacturing
microneedles involves two-photon
polymerization, or 2PP. Shaun Gittard,
a former researcher at North Carolina
State University and Laser Zentrum
Hannover and now an R&D engineer
Contributors
Cook Medical Inc.
(812) 339-2235
www.cookmedical.com
FluGen Inc.
(608) 441-2729
http://flugen.com
Georgia Institute of
Technology
(678) 525-6260
www.gatech.edu
North Carolina State
University
(919) 696-8488
www.ncsu.edu
at Cook Medical Inc., helped
pioneer 2PP, which basically lets
the user draw features in liquid
resins with a “3-D pencil,” he said.
Using a high-speed femtosecond
laser as the pencil, Gittard
and his colleagues are able to
control feature size based on the
resolution of the microscope.
With a 5× microscope, they can
draw 30µm features. At 100×,
they can create features smaller
than a micron.
A microneedle can be
a complicated structure, and
existing techniques are limited
by whatever can be drawn in the
operator’s line of sight.
“You are limited to making
straight lines and not very
complicated features, or stuck
with a 2-D structure on a wafer,”
said Gittard. “But with 2PP, you
can have direct, 3-D control over
microscale structures, like imitating the
structure of a mosquito needle, or needles
that have grooves, or different shapes for
interior channels in hollow microneedles.
It allows you to have a lot more control
over the structure than any other process.”
Roger Narayan is another North
Carolina State researcher and 2PP
pioneer. Narayan and his colleagues
have successfully delivered quantum
dots—nanoscale semiconductor crystals
that hold promise for drug delivery,
micromanufacturing.com | 39

Prickly Situation continued
in-vivo imaging and other potential
biotech applications—into the skin
using microneedles made via 2PP.
(The procedure is aimed at diagnosing
and treating skin cancer.)
Microneedles fabricated using 2PP,
he explained, create pores in the
15µm-thick stratum-corneum layer
of the skin. The needles are hollow
or “mosquito fascicle-shaped …
created out of organically modified
ceramic materials,” he said.
The devices were tested on
pig skin and allowed delivery of
quantum dots to the deep epidermis
within 15 minutes, Narayan said. By
comparison, “topically applied carboxyl
quantum dots remained on the topmost
50μm of the skin and demonstrated poor
penetration.”
Narayan believes the new 2PP process
is best-suited to mass fabrication. That’s
DOWNsizing
continued from page 19
study published in the April 25 issue
of the Journal of the American Medical
Association showed that cardiacdevice
infective endocarditis (CDIE)
increased 210 percent from 1993 to
2008. Of the 177 patients enrolled in
the study who developed CDIE, nearly
a quarter of them died as a result.
“The high rates of mortality emphasize
the need for improved preventive
measures,” the study concluded. “Given
that the number of cardiovascular
implantable electronic devices placed
are increasing rapidly, further studies
on the prevention and treatment of this
serious complication are needed.”
As it turns out, silicon technology
once again may be the key to safer,
much smaller and less costly pacemakers
by making it possible to
eliminate the lead wires that run from
the device to the heart.
Minneapolis-based Medtronic Inc.’s
Dr. Stephen Oesterle, senior vice president
for medicine and technology,
can readily be found on YouTube
discussing a pill-size pacemaker that
could be inserted into the heart via
40 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
Laser Zentrum Hannover
Microneedles fabricated via multifocus, two-photon
polymerization.
because it can be used to process a variety
of photosensitive materials, including
acrylate-based polymers, organically
modified ceramic materials, zirconium
sol-gels and titanium-containing hybrid
materials. “Many of these materials are
widely available and may be obtained at
This illustration, based on Medtronic's
online presentation, depicts the size and
shape of a pacemaker sitting atop a penny.
Currently under development, the device
will eliminate the need for lead wires.
a catheter and attached directly to
the wall of the heart. Such a device,
Oesterle told a health technology
conference in 2010, is just 3 to 4 years
away from being introduced to the
market.
What’s more, Medtronic is working
on an even smaller pacemaker, which
would be close to the size of a grain of
rice. The technology for such a device
low cost,” he said.
Gittard said mass replication can be
achieved through creation of a master
structure that serves as a mold. He and
an unnamed industry partner are working
to perfect the process.
While microneedle technology is still
developing, the needles themselves are
not the end goal, according to Radspinner.
They are simply the most logical, most
efficient method of delivering FluGen’s
product—a flu vaccine for seniors. “This
is a way to enhance the efficacy of vaccine
delivery,” Radspinner said. “That’s what
microneedles are to us.” µ
About the author:
Howard Lovy writes
about science,
technology and
innovation. He is based
in Traverse City, Mich.
Telephone: (231) 620-
2730. E-mail: howardlovy@gmail.com.
already exists, Oesterle explained,
citing through-silicon vias, integrated
recharge and telemetry coils, a 3-axis
accelerometer, die-stack assembly and
wafer-to-wafer bonding.
By using key technologies such as
micro laser drilling or DRIE (deepreactive-ion-etching)
to produce
through-silicon vias and enable 3-D
packaging, there doesn’t seem to be
much standing in the way of such
development. Except, of course,
coming up with a power source for the
tiny device.
“The hard part is [developing]
batteries that last,” Oesterle said, anticipating
that the ultimate solution
may be some sort of thin-film battery
technology or possibly an energyharvesting
component.
Though Medtronic representatives
would not comment on the progress
of either pacemaker, the company did
confirm that both projects remain
under development. µ
About the author: Dennis
Spaeth is electronic media editor for
MICROmanufacturing. Telephone: (847)
714-0176. E-mail: dspaeth@jwr.com.

I will succeed every time I compete against you.
I’ve directed my team to see and compare the world’s newest
manufacturing technology solutions in person.
They have the budget and the power to buy.
They’ll meet with the best minds in the business.
Educational sessions will enhance their knowledge.
Decisions will be made. Orders will be placed.
We will begin taking deliveries. You will be hard-pressed to keep up.
Some call this continuous improvement. We call it survival of the fi ttest.
Dominate the competition.
Attend IMTS 2012. Register at IMTS.com
.combe
there.
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M A N U F A C T U R I N G T E C H N O L O G Y S H O W
Sept. 10-15 2012 · McCormick Place · Chicago

PRODUCTS/services
CARBIDE DEBURRING TOOLS.
Heule Tool Corp. offers Micro Snap
carbide deburring tools for deburring
and chamfering the fronts and backs
of through-holes from 2mm to 5mm
in diameter in a single pass. Standard
carbide, coated cutting blade geometries
are available for aluminum, low-carbon
steel, stainless and nickel-base alloys.
Heule’s “DF”-Geometry reportedly
produces consistent chamfers in Inconel,
titanium and other superalloys. Visit Huele
Tool at IMTS booth W-1352.
(513) 860-9900
www.heuletool.com
TOOL GRINDING MACHINE. Making
ballnose endmills as small as 0.001”
(25µm) in diameter is possible with
Rollomatic Inc.’s Nano6 tool grinding
machine. This machine grinds all the
features one would expect in a 25µm
ballnose endmill, such as positive rake,
helically shaped ball gash with heel pass
and correct relief angles, and achieves
ballnose-contour accuracy in the 1µm
range. New Rollomatic VGPro software
achieves increased resolution and
calculation accuracies for the smallest
tools.
(866) 713-6398
www.rollomaticusa.com
42 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
TEST, MEASUREMENT, INSPECTION. A
catalog from Aerotech Inc. on motion
and automation for test, measurement and
inspection covers the company’s motion
capabilities in applications such as sensor
testing, surface profiling, nondestructive
testing, and semiconductor inspection and
metrology. Products discussed include
single- and multiple-axis rate tables/motion
simulators, motion simulator software, and
controls for testing and calibration.
(412) 963-7470
www.aerotech.com
TRUING, DRESSING MACHINE. The FC-
250W machine from Rush Machinery
Inc. is for truing and dressing flats, angles
and radii on single diamond and CBN
grinding wheels and wheel packs. The FC-
250W increases efficiency and accuracy by
properly profiling, modifying profiles and
truing wheels—offline of the production
grinding machinery, according to the
company. Standard features include the
ExVision computer-driven vision system, an
automatic power zoom and a 2-axis DRO
for measurement.
(800) 929-3070
www.rushmachinery.com
STEREOLITHOGRAPHY PROCESS.
FineLine Prototyping Inc. is a rapid-
prototyping and additive-manufacturing
company that specializes in fabricating
high-accuracy, high-resolution parts for
the medical device industry. The company
offers a microresolution stereolithography
process for microparts, with resolution
as fine as 30µm to 40µm in the X and Y
axes (with 25µm-thick layers). The process
utilizes the company’s custom-formulated
resin for microresolution parts.
(919) 781-7702
www.finelineprototyping.com
KEYSEAT CUTTERS. Harvey Tool Co.
LLC expanded its lines of keyseat cutters
for slotting and undercutting. New deepslotting
keyseat cutters have long radial
projections—to reduce interference—and
additional full-radius options with multiple
head diameters. More than 50 additional
widths were added to Harvey’s standard
lines of keyseat cutters. Keyseat cutters
with diameters from 1 ⁄6" and up are
available.
(800) 645-5609
www.harveytool.com

WIRE EDM. AccuteX EDM introduces
its SP-300iA 5-axis CNC wire EDM. The
machine features new “microsparking”
technology, the MST-II function, which
imparts the fine surface finishes typically
found on parts for the aerospace and
medical industries, according to the
company. The machine’s X-, Y- and Z-axis
working range is 13.8" × 9.8" × 8.7",
respectively. Travels for the U and V axes
are 3.15" each. The SP-300iA incorporates
ball-retainer-type guide ways.
(513) 701-5550
www.accutexedm.com
TOOLHOLDERS. Genevieve Swiss
Industries Inc.’s Multidec back-tool
toolholders for Swiss-style machines are
intended for turning operations on the
subspindle, as well as from an ID-tool
position. Each holder is center-height
adjustable to ±0.020", a critical feature on
machines without a Y axis, the company
reports. The toolholder system features
a range of shanks, spacers and insert
modules to suit most machines.
(413) 562-4800
www.genswiss.com/backturn.htm
MICROBRUSHES. Mill-Rose Co.
manufactures microbrushes as small
as 0.018" in diameter with natural or
synthetic fibers for honing, deburring and
other finishing tasks. The company offers
more than 100,000 brush types, including
twisted-in-wire, strip, staple set, end, cup,
wheel and drawn. Fiber materials used
include stainless steel, brass, bronze and
nylon. Specials can be ordered.
(800) 321-3533
www.millrose.com
CARBIDE ENDMILLS. Micro and specialty
endmills for industrial and medical
applications are available from Microcut
Inc. Two- and 4-flute diamond endmills
are available with a corner radius and in
fractional sizes. Specialty tools include
engraving cutters, “drill mills,” keyseat
cutters, threadmills, spotting drills,
countersinks, dovetail cutters, chamfer
cutters and routers. Orders from stock ship
the same day. Long-reach specials ship in
24 to 48 hours.
(866) 426-3300
www.microcutusa.com
MEASUREMENT AND INSPECTION. The
Optiv Classic 321GL tp from Hexagon
Metrology Inc. is a benchtop, visionbased
measuring machine with an
accuracy approaching 0.002mm. It’s
preconfigured to add a touch-probe for
multisensor measurement and comes
standard with PC-DMIS Vision imageprocessing
software and online 3-D CAD
capabilities. Typical applications include
inspection of complex, densely populated
precision parts, such as microhole dies. It
is the smallest model in the Optiv line.
(800) 274-9433
www.hexmet.us
MICRO ENDMILLS. Tungsten
ToolWorks offers seven different
micro-endmill geometries in a variety of
diameters, lengths, end conditions and
coatings. Cutting diameters as small as
0.005" can be configured from a selection
of 1 ⁄8", 3 ⁄16" and ¼" carbide blanks in
various lengths. Metric blanks are available.
The company also offers drills, step drills,
routers, reamers and tapered tools up to
1¼". The company customizes each tool
based on customer requirements.
(800) 854-2431
www.tungstentoolworks.com
micromanufacturing.com | 43

PRODUCTS/services
INDUCTION COILS. Metrigraphics
LLC relies on its core technologies of
electroforming, photolithography and
thin-film sputtering to provide OEMs with
high-precision microcomponents. One of
its newer offerings is a family of microinduction
coils for implanted medical
and traditional biomedical devices. The
coils may be used where radio-frequency
signal transmission and power-induction
capabilities are needed. The coils eliminate
the potential harm to the human body
posed by battery-operated devices.
(978) 658-6100 × 3063
www.aerotech.com
44 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
ENDMILL WEAR ANALYZER. Users can
analyze the worn edge of an endmill
with Advanced Tool Inc.’s Wear
Analysis method to determine which
changes are necessary to improve tool
life and performance, according to the
company. There is an optimal way an
endmill should wear, and how it wears
within its application can directly impact
performance. The 21-point geometric
analysis generates a report describing
changes that can improve an application.
(800) 345-0210
www.endmillsolutions.com
MICROSCOPE STAGE. PI (Physik
Instrumente) LP’s new M-687
motorized microscope X-Y stage for
inverted microscopes is reportedly more
compact than traditional computercontrollable
microscope stages due to its
fully integrated, miniature ceramic linear
drives. The M-687 comes with a controller,
joystick and software. Features include
100nm-resolution linear encoders, speeds
up to 120mm per second and a travel
range up to 135mm × 85mm.
(508) 832-3456
www.pi-usa.us

In a fast world,
you need all the flexibility
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LASTword
continued from page 48
5 microseconds, to smooth the longwavelength
features.
MICRO: One focus of the research
was predicting surface roughness.
Why is that important?
Pfefferkorn: Our model provides
a good prediction of how PLμP affects
different materials with various initial
surface roughnesses. Of course, you
can run a lot of experiments if you
want, but you’re better off with a
predictive tool to provide a ballpark
range of what laser parameters you
should be using. That’s a key part of
commercializing this process.
MICRO: For what types of parts is
this process appropriate?
ADindex
Pfefferkorn: In the research, we
focused on surface roughness we could
generate via micro-endmilling. One
of the key areas is micro molds and
dies, which are still manually polished
by skilled operators. Some companies
are trying different ways to eliminate
polishing because of the possibility
of altering a critical geometric
feature, and PLμP has the potential to
eliminate that danger.
Remember, PLμP does not remove
any material. Also, some companies
are using very time-consuming
finish-EDMing or finish-machining
of micromolds. They might be able
to reduce cycle time and costs by
not getting it quite as smooth with
machining, then quickly finishing and
polishing with this process.
MICRO: What’s the next step in the
R&D process?
Pfefferkorn: To move toward
commercialization, LasX is filing for
an SBIR (Small Business Innovation
Research) grant with the National
Science Foundation, and the
University of Wisconsin-Madison
will be a subcontractor. One of
the things we hope to work on is
developing two different process
modes: one to quickly knock down
large roughness features, and a second
mode to smooth smaller features.
We’re still working on understanding
those modes. µ
ADVERTISER NAME PAGE # CONTACT NAME CONTACT PHONE CONTACT E-MAIL / WEB SITE
AccuteX EDM, a div. of Absolute Machine Tools 5 Pete Intihar 513-701-5550 pintihar@accutexedm.com / www.accutexedm.com
Advanced Tool Inc. 32 Sherry DePerno 800-345-0210 ext.110 customerservice@advancedtool.com / www.advancedtool.com
Aerotech Inc. 21 Stephen M. McLane 412-967-6854 smclane@aerotech.com / www.aerotech.com
FineLine Prototyping Cover 2 Rob Connelly 919-781-7702 rob@finelineprototyping.com / www.finelineprototyping.com
Genevieve Swiss Industries Inc. 15 Scott Laprade 413-562-4800 slaprade@genswiss.com / www.genswiss.com
Harvey Tool Co. LLC Cover 4 Peter P. Jenkins 800-645-5609 pjenkins@harveytool.com / www.harveytool.com
Heule Tool Corp. 33 Kara A. Schuler 513-860-9900 k.schuler@heuletool.com / www.heuletool.com
Hexagon Metrology N.A. 19 Bill Fetter 800-766-4673 william.fetter@hexagonmetrology.com / www.hexagonmetrology.us
IMTS 2012 - Intl. Mfg. Technology Show 41 Jessica Aybar 703-827-5288 jaybar@amtonline.org / www.imts.com
MachineTools.com Inc. 36 785-965-2659 info@machinetools.com / www.machinetools.com
Marubeni Citizen-Cincom Inc. Cover 3 Diane Brooks 201-818-0100 dbrooks@mctz.com / www.marucit.com
Metrigraphics LLC 31 Diane Black 978-658-6104 dblack@metrigraphicsllc.com / www.metrigraphicsllc.com
Microcut 7 Joe Dennehy 781-582-8090 info@microcutusa.com / www.microcutusa.com
Microendmill.com 14 Joe Dennehy 781-582-8090 info@microendmill.com / www.microendmill.com
Microfabrica Inc. 3 Rich Chen 818-786-3322 rchen@microfabrica.com / www.microfabrica.com
Micro-Vu Corp. 29 Greg Chatfield 707-838-6272 greg.chatfield@microvu.com / www.microvu.com
The Mill-Rose Co. 12 Paul Miller Jr. 800-321-3533 info@millrose.com / www.millrose.com
NSK America Corp. 23 Vickie Prescott 800-585-4675 vickie@nskamericacorp.com / www.nskamericacorp.com
PI (Physik Instrumente) 15 Stefan Vorndran 508-832-3456 stefanv@pi-usa.us / www.pi-usa.us
Rollomatic Inc. 17 Eric Schwarzenbach 866-713-6398 solutions@rollomaticusa.com / www.rollomaticusa.com
Rush Machinery 9 Bill Freese 800-929-3070 mail@rushmachinery.com / www.rushmachinery.com
SmalTec International 22 Jerry Mraz 630-364-1788 www.smaltec.com
TDC Corporation 12 Natsuko Murakami natsuko@mirror-polish.com / www.mirror-polish.com
Tsugami - REM Sales 25 Scott Anthony 860-687-3412 santhony@remsales.com / www.remsales.com
Tsugami - REM Sales 45 Scott Anthony 860-687-3412 santhony@remsales.com / www.remsales.com
Tungsten Toolworks 11 John Forrest 800-564-5832 john@toolalliance.com / www.tungstentoolworks.com
Virtual Industries Inc. 14 Tom Mealey 719-572-5566 tmealey@virtual-ii.com / www.virtual-ii.com
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micromanufacturing.com | 47

LASTword
One of the challenges of micromachining
is polishing post-machined part surfaces.
On some microparts, the surface-roughness
dimensions approach those of the part’s
features. In an effort to improve manual
polishing techniques, researchers have
examined pulsed laser micropolishing (PLμP).
With PLμP, laser pulses of a specific
duration create shallow melt pools of a
controlled size and depth. This action
causes surface-tension forces to “pull down”
asperities with a small radius of curvature.
No ablation occurs during the process.
Among those researching micropolishing
is a team consisting of Frank E. Pfefferkorn,
associate professor, Neil A. Duffie, professor,
and Xiaochun Li, professor, Department of
Mechanical Engineering at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, and Bill Dinauer,
president of LasX Industries, St. Paul, Minn.
In an interview with MICROmanufacturing,
Pfefferkorn discussed the team’s research, the
objective of which is to improve the finish
that can be achieved on 3-D parts and predict
the final roughness of metal surfaces that
have undergone PLμP. Being able to predict
the magnitude of the polishing and frequency
(wavelength) content of the surface will help
establish processing parameters, thereby
minimizing the amount of experimentation
needed before a micropolishing operation is
performed.
The researchers published a paper on
the subject earlier this year in the Journal of
Manufacturing Processes.
MICROmanufacturing: How did this
research come about?
Pfefferkorn: It began with discussions
between me and two colleagues, Neil Duffie
and Xiaochun Li. Working with Bill Dinauer
of LasX, we developed a research proposal,
obtained funding from the National Science
Foundation and are conducting the research.
We’re now working on commercializing the
process. The motivation for me came from
researching micromilling and realizing that you
always have some residual surface roughness
on microparts. Xiaochun Li found the same
Interview with Prof. Frank E. Pfefferkorn,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Researchers shine a light on part polishing
48 | MAY/JUNE 2012 | MICROmanufacturing
with his research in lithography and rapid
prototyping. Surface roughness is a challenge
across the board in micromanufacturing.
Product designers often do not fully
understand the manufacturing processes,
and they will specify tolerances within the
roughness range of the finished part.
MICRO: What kinds of surfaces are
suitable for PLμP?
Pfefferkorn: Not every surface on a
micropart needs be polished, so we thought
that if we use a laser, we could selectively
polish critical areas. If you have a relatively
flat surface, that’s a pretty easy task for PLμP
because you can scan laser beams very
quickly. But if it’s a 3-D part, you can’t rotate
the part nearly as fast as required to reach
all the surfaces in an economical manner. If
you need to polish the whole part, you might
want to use another polishing method.
MICRO: How do you control this process?
Pfefferkorn: To some degree, we can
control how deep the melt pool is based
on the beam energy, size and duration.
The reason we use laser pulses rather than
continuous waves is that we have better
control over the melt-pool depth, which is
essential for micropart features that can easily
be destroyed. After creating a melt pool, the
surface tension pulls down the asperities, or
roughness features. By changing the pulse
duration, you can control how long the pool
is liquefied, which controls which roughness
features get smoothed out. We’re using rather
long pulses, ranging from 300 nanoseconds
to 10 microseconds, at lower power levels
[to ensure] that only melting and no ablation
occurs.
Every surface has both short-wavelength
and long-wavelength features. We’ve learned
that short-wavelength features are easy to
polish using a 300- to 600-nanosecond pulse
duration. But that can still leave much of the
original surface roughness (i.e., the roughness
in long-wavelength features). The surface can
look shiny, but in many cases the Ra value
hasn’t changed more than 10 to 20 percent.
You’ll need longer pulse durations, such as
continued on page 47

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