UK-based MicroStencil launched a new production facility for the manufacture of ultra-fine pitch screen printing stencils.

Following its spin-out from Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University, additional investment has now enabled the company to expand stencil manufacturing at its headquarters in Livingston with the installation of a class 100 cleanroom and customized production equipment based on the semiconductor manufacturing processes.

The company provides an electroformed stencil that allows the fabrication of sub-100 micron aperture pitch. The stencil has the potential to deliver considerable advantages in interconnecting technology and offers in screen printing for wafer bumping and chip bonding.

The process forms high tolerance apertures with extremely smooth sidewalls. Such stencils are beginning to enable printing at sub-150 micron pitch. While current methods of applying solder bumps using stencil printing cannot cost-effectively get below a 150µm aperture pitch, severely restricting the use of flip-chip packaging, MicroStencil can push the limits down to 10µm aperture size and 10µm web space.

The technology achieves high-density electrical interconnects leading to higher portability and functionality in portable electronics devices.

www.micro-stencil.com 

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