Towards in process control of polymer micro manufactured components

In the last decade the number of applications of micro components has increased steadily. In order for Europe to maintain its leading role in the polymer micro-fabrication industry there is a need of expansion for processes capabilities for mass manufacture. The present study focuses on the design of a fast-integrated inspection method aimed at part quality monitoring and tolerance conformance verification. The proposed approach investigates as product case study the optimization of polymer (VECTRA® E820i) passive micro microwave components. A focus variation 3D optical high-speed metrology system was employed to perform the measurements on the produced polymer parts. Automated measuring routine allowed fast dimensional quality mapping of the functional sub-mm features integrated in the plastic frame of the final microwave component. Design of experiment (DOE) was adopted to quantify significant factors affecting the final replication quality of the produced critical features. Measurement results have shown product conformance varying with the distance from the gate and features orientation with respect to the polymer flow direction.