Laser Machining Services

Laser ablation is an incredibly fast process used to precisely remove layers of material and unwanted depositions on substrates or circuit boards. Generally, we are correcting excess material deposition in effort to avoid defective product or in the case of circut boards the process is used to create solder dams. 

Laser Ablaton Benefits:

• Removes excess conductive inks and metals without damaging substrate
• Eliminates the need for masking and chemical etching-saving time and money
• Increases throughput with high speed clean up, reduces scrap

EDI’s laser drilling service provides high speed, high accuracy drilling of small holes in a wide array of materials. This process produces thru-holes by repeatedly pulsing focused laser energy onto a surface. Trepanning is used where larger holes are required, meaning that the laser is moved around the circumference of the hole until the desired diameter is achieved. The no contact process offers distinct advantages over EDM and mechanical drilling especially when working with glass, ceramic, PCBs and semiconductor materials like:

• Silicon
• Silicon Carbide

Advantages of Laser Drilling

• Less heat into the material
• Less stress and therefore less cracking
• No tooling breakdown
• Very small repeatable holes with precise taper each time
• Drilling on hard, soft and difficult to process materials
• Eliminates the need for secondary operations like burr removal
• Increased yields

Laser scribing allows much narrower lines than traditional mechanical scribing.  The process is non contact and reduces micro-cracking, HAZ (heat affected zones) and any damage to the substrate.  EDI offers superior beam quality—ideal for production requiring cleaner scribe lines, easy singulation combined with high production volumes at the highest quality. Scribe widths at EDI can be as narrow as .002” — an industry leader in ceramic processing!

Advantages of Laser Scribing Process:

• Ideal for hard/brittle materials
• Reduces micro-cracking, chipping and delamination
• Offers tighter cutting widths which enables more parts per wafer or substrate
• Cost effective, highly repeatable and reliable process
• Used extensively in microelectronics, semiconductor and LED lighting industries

Laser Scribing Tolerances:

• Assumption is 91% - 99.9% Alumina
• Scribe Depth: 30 - 60% of material thickness
• Pulse Spacing: 0.005” +/- 0.003”
• Standard Dimensional Tolerances post breaking and snapping:  +/- 0.002
• Standard Tolerance for slag (height):  < 0.001”

Laser cutting or laser processing is a non-contact process using the focused energy from a directed laser beam to continuously thru-cut the targeted material. The effects of the laser energy-material interaction are material ablation and/or removal of material. This process is assisted by using a jet of air or gas to remove heated material. Controlling both the laser beam and assist gas we are able to control and reduce the heat affected zone as well as the percentage of taper within the cut area.

During laser cutting the absorption characteristics and chemical composition of the material and the desired results greatly influence the selection of the laser type and power level.

Laser cutting allows for developers unlimited variations in their designs with micron accuracy.

Benefits using Laser Cutting:

• Flexibility of design
• Consistent process control with a non-contact tool
• Eliminates tool wear or replacement

Laser Cutting Tolerances:

Hole Diameter .001” (material and thickness dependent)
Hole Taper 10% of material thickness

Specific Tolerances: (thickness dependent)

Edge to edge within a substrate ± .001”
Optical aligned tolerance .0005”
Maximum size 15” x 15”
Smallest feature .001”