Moore's Law and Mold making - Staying in the Megapixel race

摘要

In this presentation an impression is given of technical developments within Philips High Tech Plastics, a European supplier with a production facility in Suzhou, China. Philips HTP is making precision plastic and optical parts for the mass consumer electronics market; the largest part of its current business is camera objective lenses and actuators for mobile phone. A supplier in consumer electronics has to deal with Moore's law, being one of the most specific characteristics of this particular market. This law says that every 18 - 24 months the performance of computers will double, while the price at the same performance will be halved, at the same rate. So this law also applies to lenses that are mounted on a silicon chip; the product life cycle is short, typical 2 -3 years, and the next generation needs to have an ever-higher performance. The pixels are getting smaller and smaller, so the resolution of the lenses has to follow. This means a continuous tightening of the tolerances in mold making, molding and assembly, and the improvements are needed at a high rate. In the presentation is described what challenges in ever increasing precision are encountered, developments that are carried out to meet those, and in what extent Philips HTP is successful reaching the required goals.