Environmentally benign manufacturing of compact disc stampers (Final Phase II report)

摘要

Optical data storage is currently a ;10B/yr. business. With the introduction of the high capacity Digital Versatile Disc (D/D) as well as the continued growth of CD-Audio and CD-ROM worldwide sales of optical data products as a whole are growing at rate of more than 10% per year. In North America, more than 2.5 billion optical discs will be sold in 1998. By 1999, the numbers of optical discs produced for the North American market will grow to almost three billion. The optical disc manufacturing industry is dominated by Asian and European companies (e.g. Sony of Japan and Philips of Netherlands). Prism Corporation has created a process that could significantly improve US competitiveness in the business of optical disc production. The objectives of the Phase II STTR project were to build and test an ion machining system (IMS) for stamper fabrication, prove overall manufacturing system feasibility by fabrication stampers and replicas, and evaluate alternative materials and alternative process parameters to optimize the process. During tie period of the Phase II project Prism Corporation was able to meet these objectives. In the course of doing so, adjustments had been made to better the project and in turn the final product. An ion machining system was designed and built that produced stampers ready for the molding process. Also, many control steps in the manufacturing process were studied to improve the current process and make it even more compatible with the industry standards, fitting seamlessly into current manufacturing lines.