 Dear reader,
At the beginning of a new year you always look back on the previous year and make new plans for the coming year.
2011 has been a very special year for IBS. After years of research and development we delivered our first Isara 400 coordinate measuring machine to the IOM Leibniz Institute in Germany. This has been a milestone for us and for our customer. Needless to say we are very proud of this achievement. More about our Isara further on in this newsletter.
2011 also was my final year as euspen president, which I handed over to prof. Paul Shore in May 2011 during the very succesful (and beautiful) conference in Como. I look back with great pleasure having served as president and I am proud of the things achieved during my presidency.
What to expect from 2012?
This always is a difficult question, but especially now. If we may believe the press with their non-stop newsstream of bad news about the worsening economic climate, 2012 is going to be a horrible year. Fortunately however, the reality seems to be different. In a recent publication from the SEMI association called "Fearless into a doomsday year" it is expected that spending in the Semiconductor industry might decline with about 10% compared to 2011. However, if you realize that 2011 was a record breaking year, 2012 is expected to be very good, especially in the 2nd half of the year. For the total year the expectations are the same as for 2007, which is still considered as the best performing year ever. I am starting 2012 with great confidence!
I hope you can join me in this confidence and wish you all the best for the year ahead!
Dr. ir. Henny Spaan
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IBS Precision Engineering has delivered it's first Isara 400 full 3D ultra precision coordinate measuring machine to the IOM Leibniz institute in Germany.
To accommodate small spaces and larger measurement ranges & resolutions, Lion Precision has expanded their capacitive probe selection. New probes are available in diameters of 3 mm, 18 mm and 25 mm. In addition to new sizes, the probes use new design parameters that further improve long-term stability, resolution, and temperature drift. On the small end of the spectrum, the new 3mm diameter probes provide measurement ranges as small as 10 µm with resolutions less than 1 nanometer. The tiny probes are only 15 mm long with right-angle or axial cable exits for squeezing into very tight spaces. On the larger end, the new 18 mm and 25 mm probes provide measurement ranges as large as 12.5 mm while still maintaining resolutions as low as 125 nm.
For the ProDuZo (Production of Thin Film Solar Cells), a new production process of Thin Film Solar Cells is investigated. IBS Precision Engineering is going to monitor the production process by use of Machine Vision and already gave a demonstration on this during the Precision Fair 2011.
For over ten years, the industry standard Spindle Error Analyzer (SEA) from Lion Precision, offered by IBS Precision Engineering, has been measuring machine-tool spindle thermal growth and error motions in multiple axes. It has now been adapted for micro-machining. The micro-machining system uses smaller versions of the non-contact probes, probe mounts, and masterball targets, along with standard spindle error analyzer software, to perform ANSI and ISO standard tests of spindle performance.
The application of five-axis machining has become increasingly common. In order to be able to machine workpieces with sufficient accuracy, the real position of a rotary axis with respect to the other machine’s axes must be known accurately. This generally requires a considerable measurement effort. At IBS Precision Engineering an innovative 3D measurement system, the so called R-Test, has been developed which can be used for three measuring purposes: