• Proceedings of the Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute Conference
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• 2006.09a
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• pp.43-44
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• 2006

The production method of micro sacrificial plastic mold insert metal injection molding, namely ${\mu}-SPiMIM$ process has been proposed to solve specific problems involving the miniaturization of MIM. Two types of sacrificial plastic molds (SP-mold) with fine structures were used: 1) PMMA resist, 2) PMMA mold injected into Ni-electroform, which is a typical LIGA (${\underline{L}}ithographie-{\underline{G}}alvanoformung-{\underline{A}}bformung$) process. Stainless steel 316L feedstock was injection-molded into the SP-molds with multi-pillar structures. This study focused on the effects of metal particle size and processing conditions on the shrinkage, transcription and surface roughness of sintered parts.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.6-10
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• 2003

Electroplated Ni and Ni-W micro-molds using LIGA-like process for replication of micro-components such as microfluidic parts and micro optical parts have been investigated. In general, it is hard to produce micro-parts using conventional mechanical processes. Micro-mold formed by LIGA-like process could fabricate micro-parts with high aspect ratio. In this paper, fabrication and properties of electroplated Ni molds with varying applied current types as well as those of Ni-W molds were investigated. Ni molds fabricated under pulse-reverse current showed the highest hardness value of about 160 Hv. Ni-W molds showed the hardness of about 500 Hv which was much harder than that of Ni electroplated molds. The above results suggested that high quality micro-molds could be fabricated by using Ni electroplating of pulse-reverse type for core molds and sequential Ni-W alloys coating.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.140-145
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• 2012

This paper describes the manufacturing process of tilting pad gas bearing with a diameter of 5 mm and a length of 0.5-1 mm for power MEMS (Micro Electomechanical Systems) applications. The bearing compacts with nanopowder feedstock were prepared by Ni-metal mold with 2-mold system using LIGA process. The effect of the manufacturing conditions on sintering properties of nanopowder gas bearing was investigated. In this work, Fe-45 wt%Ni nanopowder with an average diameter of 30-50 nm size was used as starting material. After mixing the nanopowder and the wax-based binders, the amount of powder was controlled to obtain the certain mixing ratio. The nanopowder bearing compacts were sintered with 1-2 hr holding time under hydrogen atmospheres and under temperatures of $600^{\circ}C$ to $1,000^{\circ}C$. Finally, the critical batch of mixed powder system was found to be 70% particle fraction in total volume. The maximum density of the sintered bearing specimen was about 94% of theoretical density.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.165-169
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• 2007

The light guide plate (LGP) of LCD-BLU (Liquid Crystal Display-Back Light Unit) is usually manufactured by forming numerous dots by etching process. However, the surface of those etched dots of LGP is very rough due to the characteristics of etching process, so that its light loss is relatively high due to the dispersion of light. Accordingly, there is a limit in raising the luminance of LCD-BLU. In order to overcome the limit of current etched-dot patterned LGP, micro-lens pattern was tested to investigate the possibility of replacing etched pattern in the present study. The micro-lens pattern fabricated by the modified LiGA with thermal reflow process was applied to the optical design of LGP. The attention was paid to the effects of different optical pattern type (i.e. etched dot, micro-lens). Finally, the micro-lens patterned LGP showed better optical qualities than the one made by the etched-dot patterned LGP in luminance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.383-386
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• 2007

In this study, the analysis was carried out for Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) characteristics of the Cu electrodes by LIGA process. The shape of electrodes has 324 pins for the cavity of BGA(Ball Grid Array) type test socket mold. BGA test sockets are used in the inspection process of the semi-conductor I.C chip manufacturing. In the work, the machining performance for EDM of the electrodes was analyzed on dimensional accuracy and wear rate. The dimensional accuracy was measured for dimension of the pins, pitch size between the pins and the roundness of corner edge using optical measuring machine.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07b
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• pp.1050-1053
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• 2002

This paper presents metal structure that is fabricated using UV-LIGA process with PMER N-CA3000. In order to fabricate metal structure with high aspect ratio, the systematic optimization method was adopted and then the structure of $36{\mu}m$ thick mold with aspect ratio 7:1 (trench) and $32{\mu}m$ thick nickel structure was obtained. This structure is applied to the fabrication of optical switch.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2000.05a
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• pp.1043-1046
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• 2000

By combination of X-ray lithography, electroplating and molding process, various microstructures have been produced. Specially, the alignment grooves for multi-fibers with submicron accuracy have been produced. This paper described a fabrication process of LICA molds and micro molding technique by using LIGA molds. The accuracy of the fabricated LIGA molds was less than 0.4${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$. The injection molded alignment grooves were very precise and had me surface roughness so that they could be successfully applicable to optical systems.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.223-227
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• 2002

Polymeric multi-mode optical waveguides were fabricated for parallel optical interconnection. Waveguide structures were molded by a Ni mold master using a hot embossing technique. The Ni mold master was manufactured by LIGA process. Multimode optical waveguides with a 48$\times$47 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$$^2$cross-section were produced by a simple two-step process. The propagation losses of the multimode waveguide measured at 0.85 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ and 1.3 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ wavelengths were 0.38 dB/cm and 0.66 dB/cm, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2002.02a
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• pp.253-259
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• 2002

Micro cell structures with high aspect ratio were fabricated by injection molding method. The mold inserts had dimension $1.9cm\times8.3cm$ composed of a lot of micro posts and were fabricated by LIGA process. The size of the micro posts was $157{\mu}m\times157{\mu}m\times500{\mu}m$ and the gaps between two adjacent posts were $50{\mu}m$. Using Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) injection molding was performed. The key experimental variables were temperature, pressure, and time. By controlling these, good shaped mim cell structures with $50{\mu}m$ in wall thickness and $500{\mu}m$ in depth were obtained. In order to understand micro molding mechanism, shape changes of molded PMMA were studied with experimental variables. And the durability of mold insert was investigated, too. The results show that the most important factor in molding processes was the mold temperature that is closely related to the filling of the melt into the micro cavity. And the holding time before cooling showed a great effect on the quality of molded PMMA.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.143-144
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• 2006

In this paper, we proposed XP KMPR-1050 negative tone resist to replace SU-8 resist for multi-layer micro-structures and thick plating mold fabrication using UV-LIGA process. XP KMPR resist proposed in this paper can be easily striped using a common stripping solution such as NMP without damage of micro-structure. The conditions for the fabrication of XP KMPR micro-structure were optimized by adjustment of exposure and post-exposure bake(PEB). The $140{\mu}m$ -thick and an aspect ratio at least 10 micro-structure and multi-layer structures were successfully fabricated through the process conditions. Through-mold electroplating and PR striping of XP KMPR has been successfully demonstrated.