June 2006
Silverhalide Photomasks with Sub Mil Lines Mounted on Glass
The basic chemistry of photography is about 125 years
old. Over time the technology has been refined over and
over again. With increasing capabilities the diversity of
the products expanded. A film used to capture X-rays to
generate a medical image is not comparable with a film
used as original to generate a newspaper page.
The chemical milling industry has it own needs and
expectations and the phototool suppliers addressed these
needs and expectations with a customer designed film.
Over the 125 years film suppliers learned how to customize
the characteristics of their products. But there
is no such thing as a free lunch. What can be won in
one aspect is to be pruned on elsewhere. A film is a
compromise. In a modern chemical milling industry phototool
the image integrity, the scratch resistance and the
dimensional stability are pushed to the very end.
Eric Janssens, Business Manager PCB, Agfa-Gevaert N.V., Mortsel Belgium
