Situation: Customer requested proposal related to Microhole Drilling parts with diameters as small as 10-microns. (Potomac can drill microholes as small as 1 micron).

Problem:

Electronics company required a 1-week turnaround on 21 different designs related to parts that required multiple microhole diameters and patterns in two different types of material.

Challenge:

Provide a rapid and cost-effective solution to drill microholes with diameters between 10 and 200 microns in Kapton (polyimide) and Mylar (polyester) material.

Solution:

Utilizing direct-write microhole drilling technology, Potomac was able to quickly convert multiple .dxf drawings to machine code and begin producing microholes within hours of receiving the request from our customer.  Depending on the number of microholes per part, which varied between 50 and 10,000, the parts took from several minutes to greater than an hour to complete.  Critical tolerances included very tight hole to hole positioning, microhole diameters and taper.

Conclusion:

Potomac successfully completed  all 21 products designs in less than a week.  With over 20 years of Microhole drilling experience the set-up and programming for multiple microhole patterns, diameters and materials can be achieved quickly and cost-effectively (pennies / hole).  Once the product is transitioned to full scale production, Potomac has the resources to ramp-up and implement technologies capable of microhole drilling 1,000-s of holes / minute.