Besides developing and producing Direct Laser Writers and Industrial Led Solutions, 4PICO is also active as an engineering/prototyping firm. Projects related to UV exposure tools and imprinting equipment are within our domain. Do you have a problem in your high tech manufacturing infrastructure that cannot be solved with a standard solution? Please contact us, to find out what we can do for you.
In the production of CD/DVD’s, a master stampers needs to be fabricated which is used in injection molding machines to replicate a large number of CD/DVD’s. For the Swedish company M2, we have developed a mastering machine for the production of CDs and DVDs. In the years 2004 - 2008 we have manufactured and commissioned 27 of these machines. This machine was equipped with a unique optical module and was at that time the fastest of its kind. The mastering machine was also cheaper than competing designs and very easy to operate.
Due to the high cost of silicon, solar panel manufactures were looking into the fabrication of solar panels on thin films of silicon. In order to raise the voltage generated by a solar panel, many active areas of the solar panel need to be connected in series. These connections can be made by slicing through the conductive layers of the solar cell. We designed and manufactured the Helios (CIGS) Thin Film Scriber, a unique scriber which applied a laser to manufacture thin layers of silicon without physical contact. Upon delivery this machine had the highest speed in its class. It can handle up to 16 substrates per hour.
In order to produce large amounts of micro-structures, a method called UVNIL (UV Nano Imprint Lithography) is used. 4PICO applied this technology in a UV Imprinting machine for the production of micro lenses. This machine replicates double-sided structures with an alignment accuracy < 1 micron and can process as many as 10 double-sided wafers per hour. As the set up consists of 4 stations, 3 different products can be manufactured simultaneously. The technique applied in this equipment isalso particularly suitable for replicating other small structures such as MEMS.
In the production of LCD screens, two glass panels with active layers on both sides need to be aligned accurately. 4PICO has delivered an alignment upgrade for an existing LCD line. The two panels (max 300 x 400 mm) needed to be aligned inside a vacuum chamber before being pressed together. The active alignment system designed by 4PICO improved the accuracy with which two plates were aligned from 50 a 60 microns to < 2 microns.