• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.117-121
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• 2012

Tool steels serve a large range of applications including hot and cold workings of metals and injection mouldings of plastics or light alloys. The high speed steels (HSS) are specifically used as cutting tools and wear parts because it has high strength, wear resistance and hardness along with appreciable toughness and fatigue resistance. From the view of HSS microstructure, it can be described as metallic matrix composites formed by a ferrous with a dispersion of hard and wear resistant carbides. The experimental specimens were manufactured using the PIM with T42 powders (50~80 vol.%) and polymer (20~50 vol.%). The green parts were debinded in n-hexane solution at $60^{\circ}C$ for 8 hours and thermal debinded at an $N_2-H_2$ mixed gas atmosphere for 8 hours. Specimens were sintered in high vacuum ($10^{-5}$ Torr) and various temperatures.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.74-77
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• 2009

Demands for high quality and productivity of precision mechanical parts are increasing greatly nowadays due to the rapid growth of information technologies and convergence industries. Therefore, core technologies for fabrication of precision mechanical parts are the fundamental issues, which are the precision machining, micro powder injection molding technologies, MR polishing, micro polymer processes, micro actuation modules and so on. These technologies are directly related to the mass production of high functional devices and machineries. Therefore, this study investigates the fabrication technologies of micro precision molds for advanced devices for possible commercialization in a near future.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.312-318
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• 2010

High speed steels (HSS) were used as cutting tools and wear parts, because of high strength, wear resistance, and hardness together with an appreciable toughness and fatigue resistance. Conventional manufacturing process for production of components with HSS was used by casting. The powder metallurgy techniques were currently developed due to second phase segregation of conventional process. The powder injection molding method (PIM) was received attention owing to shape without additional processes. The experimental specimens were manufactured with T42 HSS powders (59 vol%) and polymer (41 vol%). The metal powders were prealloyed water-atomised T42 HSS. The green parts were solvent debinded in normal n-Hexane at $60^{\circ}C$ for 24 hours and thermal debinded at $N_2-H_2$ mixed gas atmosphere for 14 hours. Specimens were sintered in $N_2$, $H_2$ gas atmosphere and vacuum condition between 1200 and $1320^{\circ}C$. In result, polymer degradation temperatures about optimum conditions were found at $250^{\circ}C$ and $480^{\circ}C$. After sintering at $N_2$ gas atmosphere, maximum hardness of 310Hv was observed at $1280^{\circ}C$. Fine and well dispersed carbide were observed at this condition. But relative density was under 90%. When sintering at $H_2$ gas atmosphere, relative density was observed to 94.5% at $1200^{\circ}C$. However, the low hardness was obtained due to decarbonization by hydrogen. In case of sintering at the vacuum of $10^{-5}$ torr at temperature of $1240^{\circ}C$, full density and 550Hv hardness were obtained without precipitation of MC and $M_6C$ in grain boundary.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.182-182
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• 2012

Plasma etching is used in various semiconductor processing steps. In plasma etcher, optical- emission spectroscopy (OES) is widely used for in-situ endpoint detection. However, the sensitivity of OES is decreased if polymer is deposited on viewport or the proportion of exposed area on the wafer is too small. Because of these problems, the object is to investigate the suitability of using plasma impedance monitoring (PIM) and self plasma optical emission spectrocopy (SPOES) with statistical approach for in-situ endpoint detection. The endpoint was determined by impedance signal variation from I-V monitor (VI probe) and optical emission signal from SPOES. However, the signal variation at the endpoint is too weak to determine endpoint when $SiO_2$ and SiNx layers are etched by fluorocarbon on inductive coupled plasma (ICP) etcher, if the proportion of $SiO_2$ and SiNx area on Si wafer are small. Therefore, modified principal component analysis (mPCA) is applied to them for increasing sensitivity. For verifying this method, detected endpoint from impedance monitoring is compared with optical emission spectroscopy.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.32-32
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• 2011

Plasma etching is used in microelectronic processing for patterning of micro- and nano-scale devices. Commonly, optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is widely used for real-time endpoint detection for plasma etching. However, if the viewport for optical-emission monitoring becomes blurred by polymer film due to prolonged use of the etching system, optical-emission monitoring becomes impossible. In addition, when the exposed area ratio on the wafer is small, changes in the optical emission are so slight that it is almost impossible to detect the endpoint of etching. For this reason, as a simple method of detecting variations in plasma without contamination of the reaction chamber at low cost, a method of measuring plasma impedance is being examined. The object in this research is to investigate the suitability of using plasma impedance monitoring (PIM) with statistical approach for real-time endpoint detection of $SiO_2$ etching. The endpoint was determined by impedance signal variation from I-V monitor (VI probe). However, the signal variation at the endpoint is too weak to determine endpoint when $SiO_2$ film on Si wafer is etched by fluorocarbon plasma on inductive coupled plasma (ICP) etcher. Therefore, modified principal component analysis (mPCA) is applied to them for increasing sensitivity. For verifying this method, detected endpoint from impedance analysis is compared with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). From impedance data, we tried to analyze physical properties of plasma, and real-time endpoint detection can be achieved.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1465-1477
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• 1993

Powder Injection Molding(PM) is an advanced and complicated technology for manufacturing ceramic or metal products making use of a conventional injection molding process, which is generally used for plastic products. Among many technologies involved in the successful PIM, injection molding process is one of the key steps to form a desired shape out of powder/binder mixtures. Thus, it is of great importance to have a numerical tool to predict the powder injection molding filling process. In this regard, a finite element analysis system has been developed for numerical simulations of filling process of powder injection molding. Powder/polymer mixtures during the filling pro cess of injection molding can be rheologically characterized as Non-Newtonian fluids with a so called yield phenomena and have a peculiar feature of apparent slip phenomena on the wall boundaries surrounding mold cavity. Therefore, in the present study, a physical modeling of the filling process of powder/polymer mixtures was developed to take into account both the yield stress and slip phenomena and a finite element formulation was developed accordingly. The numerical analysis scheme for filling simulation is accomplished by combining a finite element method with control volume technique to simulate the movement of flow front and a finite difference method to calculate the temperature distribution. The present study presents the modeling, numerical scheme and some numerical analysis results showing the effect of the yield stress and slip phenomena.