Broad-based and open-minded approach to Micromachining
I have been preaching about the advantages of an open-minded and broad-based micromachining approach for several years. I am quite surprised that no one seriously considers this approach- neither Micromachining Service providers nor product developers.
There are an ever increasing number of service providers mushrooming all over the place, many of who will go under because the market-size is limited. The bigger and longer-established ones will continue to pull through. However, there has never been a market-shaking provider in all the years that I have been involved in micromachining. Some did come out with a big splash, particularly just before the run-up to the telecom bubble and its inevitable burst during the early 2000s. Valuations that were in the millions fell to almost nothing. Many had bought expensive micromachining capital equipment in anticipation of the telecom boom, which never came through, but that’s another story. Anyway, after the crash, it was silence from the micromachining biggies.
There was a lot of buzz from time to time in other fields. Microfluidics was a hot topic in the eraly 1990s. At that time, I was upbeat on laser micromachining being the primary rapid prototyping tool, until other disruptive developments came along. One was the Whitesides team with their simple PDMS techniques coupled with silicon micromachining. The latter is a well established technology, with its own protocols, well-defined and documented processes etc. Laser micromachining, in comparison, looks like a cowboy on a wild night out- no set rules, wildly differing pricing, non-existent process steps etc. Still, laser micromachining is the ‘rapidest’ of them all, and cheap for a certain size-range of channels and holes. You can do a lot with just one or two laser micromachining systems in-house. That explains why we have a numerous laser micromachining providers, compared to a handful of commercial (non-educational) bulk/surface silicon micromachining providers/foundries.
What is the average micromachining-technology knowledge level of those needing it? From my experience, most people from commercial setups have very little knowledge of micromachining, while the Education/R&D folks (probably because they have all the time in the world!) a little higher. But unless one is a job-shop specialist, it is quite difficult to choose the right technology. The requirements have to be well thought out: process stability, material choice, manufacturing ease, bio-compatibility, QC requirement, documentation, packaging, integration, short-term and long-term costs etc.
Instead of talking to just Silicon Micromachinists and trying to work with and around the processing parameters, or trying just laser micromachinists, wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could just talk to one person with competencies in various microfabrication technologies? Even better would be to approach a broad-based commercial micromachining facility (in a non-educational, non-research setting)? Customers could get their prototypes going real fast, and test out their ideas real fast.
The core competency of device developers is, well, device development. They shouldn’t have to worry about manufacturing processes. Leave that to the broad-based micromachining guys. Less wasted time and money.