Winter 1996
Fine Line Etching of Lead Frames
Lead frame manufacture has become onc of the fastest
growing segments of the photo-chemical machining
industry teday. Much of the interconnect circuitry
and components lhat used to go on the printed circuit
board now goes directly on the chip and the chips
themselves are getting smaller. In short, electronic designers
are saving space on the printed circuit board
surface by putting some of its functions in the chip.
This means, however, that more chips are being used
which in turn means more lead frames are needed to
make the interconnection with the circuit card which
communicates with all the other chips. The growth in
demand in the past three years has been phenomenal
and several large manufachirers in Asia estimate that
they will have to expand their production eight times
by the year 2000 to keep up.
Don Ball, Atotech USA, Inc.
