New aspects of simulation in hot embossing

Abstract

Hot embossing is especially well suited for manufacturing small and medium-volume series. However, wider diffusion of this process currently is seriously hampered by the lack of adequate simulation tools for process optimization and part design. This lack of simulation tools is becoming critical, as the dimensions of the microstructures continuously shrink from micron and sub-micron to nano scales and as productivity requirements dictate the enlargement of formats to process larger numbers of devices in parallel. Having no macroscopic equivalent, the micro hot embossing process cannot be described by simple downscaling of existing software tools like in injection molding. In this paper a first survey is given of how numerical simulation can also be applied to the hot embossing process.