Yes, it would be handy to have one of these -- though cost of ownership can be high compared to the low price and quick turnaround of ordering from a service. They are usually described as film plotters or laser plotters for PCB's. You'll want the kind that can print on mylar, probably at least 16,000 DPI to be able to define decent line edges for 10 micron structures. One service listed on the SNF website provides up to 40,000 dpi, though 20,000 seems more common. One more thing to consider is that the print drum size makes a difference -- your typical desktop laser printer has a small diameter drum that the paper/transparency is wrapped around which means that the image is slightly elongated along one axis. So, you'd have to compensate or layout all your masks in one direction. Or, as I learned recently from Bill Martin (our Compugraphics and Infinite Graphics contact and mask expert - Bill@Martinphotomask.com) there are fancy flat bed imagers which don't have this bias. If you search on terms like laser photoplotter or film plotters for the PCB industry, there should be a lot of manufacturers.
M
On 4/30/2011 12:04 PM, Mikael Evander wrote:
Hi.
Does anyone know what kind of printers the companies that offer high resolution transparency photomasks use? I'm not talking about a really good office printer but the professional stuff. I've seen masks with features down to 10 um that looks really nice but I have no idea how expensive those printing systems are and if it is something that would be possible to acquire for a lab.
thanks and best regards
Mikael
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