Objective
Low cost manufacturing process for selectively plated, 2 shot moulded plastic interconnectors with IDC and spring beam features - 2KINTERCON - Of the 38,000 moulding, plating and toolmaking companies in Europe, around 75% are SMEs. However, the end customers for electronics interconnector products such as telephone & computer plugs and sockets, tend to be dominated by larger, often American technology led and owned companies, using traditionally manufactured electronic interconnectors with stamped and selectively plated conductive metal inserts. Over recent years, an alarming trend has developed for European manufacturers in the electronics sector to source electronic interconnectors from a growing number of cheaper Pacific Rim manufacturers. The shift away from European supply has the effect of taking with it the typical traditional supply chain for tooling, metal plating and injection moulding, causing increasing concern to the SMEs sectors involved. Around 98% of the market is currently serviced by these products, with the remaining market split between several moulded interconnector device (MID) production routes, including photo imaging, flexible carrier films, subtractive processes (eg. Iaser ablation), multi-stage moulding and 2 shot moulding. Each of these processes has a significant premium in terms of price and, with the exception of two shot moulding, limited capability for mass production, which has prevented mass take-up of the process, even though there are significant benefits in increased functionality over traditional interconnectors. The industrial objective of the proposed RTD is to provide European SME supply chain companies with selectively plated, two shot moulded electronic interconnector technology, with the following advantages over traditional metal insert interconnector products, but with a price reduction of up to 50% depending upon interconnector layout:Integration of novel spring beam and IDC features .Increased functionality, eg. RF shielding, or heat sinks integrated during the production process Weight reductionReliability improvement Miniaturisation 100% recyclable interconnectors Reduction in the number of process steps and therefore work in progress To achieve this a number of technical objectives must be met, including:The development of innovative IDC and spring beam designs, to match all the current and expected performance standards of the electronic interconnector industry, while extracting the maximum benefit from the designs possibilities of using polymer materials compared to metal. Development of selective plating of polymer materials to allow sufficient hardness and thickness of plating to withstand the insertion and removal standard life cycling tests of the interconnectors industry Overcoming the cost implications of using expensive platable polymers, as part of the two component moulding, by reducing the conductive path thickness significantly, and developing the necessary tool gate layout to allow the polymer to reach the end of its flow path at the very limits of its rheological properties. Developing a high speed automated handling system for the transfer of components from the mould tool to the plating cell, with a high degree of accuracy, and operational reliability over 90%. Cycle time should not be significantly increased to allow the cost advantages of automation to be beneficial.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering manufacturing engineering
- social sciences sociology industrial relations automation
- natural sciences chemical sciences polymer sciences
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Coordinator
RH12 1JD Horsham
United Kingdom
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