Production of extremely small drills risen by 25%

The demand for drill bits with diameters of less than 0.3 mm continues to rise throughout the circuit board industry, particularly in Japan and China. The trend in this sector is reflected in the development of new drill diameters at MPK Kemmer PCB Tools.

MPK Kemmer PCB Tools is so well prepared for the future as a manufacturer of extremely small drills primarily as a result of having engaged with this development at an early stage. Theo Martens, Manager of Application Technology at PCB Tools, points out that "The trend to smaller diameters could be discerned a long time ago. For that reason we took the manufacture of extremely small tools of high-quality as our goal from the very beginning."

This calculation bore fruit, as the development of the drill diameters at PCB Tools shows: whereas in 2001 production was still dominated by drill bits with diameters between 0.31 and 0.5 mm (more than 50%), the proportion of these drills had fallen to a half in 2003. Over the same period, the proportion of drills produced with diameters between 0.175 and 0.3 mm rose from about 15 percent to more than 40 percent. This is equivalent to an increase in production in this segment of 25 percent.

Martens explains that "Mobile phones and computers, in which more and more features have to be housed on the same space as before – or even on less – are the markets driving the development of extremely small tools. The crucial issue for drill bit manufacturers here is no longer that of creating tools for a higher packing density, but rather that of keeping the hole quality under control." PCB Tools must, moreover, keep an eye on the development of circuit board materials, as more flexible materials will be used in future.

The latest drill tests indicate that the future of drill production at PCB Tools lies with bits whose diameters are between 0.05 and 0.16 mm. Theo Martens adds that "Our drill tests have shown that we can already manufacture 0.05 mm drills for the inner layers of circuit boards with very low drill breakage figures. It is the excellent result of these tests that shows us the direction for the future development of our tools."