Table Of ContentΝ. Ikawa · S. Shimada · T. Moriwaki
P.A. McKeown · R.C. Spragg (Eds.)
INTERNATIONAL PROGRESS
IN PRECISION ENGINEERING
Proceedings of the
7th International Precision Engineering Seminar
Kobe, Japan, May 1993
in U T T E R W O R TH
| g |E I Ν Ε Μ Α Ν Ν
Boston London Oxford Singapore Sydney Toronto Wellington
Professor Ν. Dcawa
Dr. S. Shimada
Department of Precision Engineering
Osaka University
2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita
Osaka 565, JAPAN
Professor T. Moriwaki
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Kobe University
Rokkodai, Nada
Kobe 657, JAPAN
Professor P.A. McKeown
Professor R.C. Spragg
Cranfield Unit for Precision Engineering
Cranfield Institute of Technology
Cranfield, Bedford MK 43 OAL
UNITED KINGDOM
ISBN0-7506-9484-X
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Foreword
by
Professor Pat McKeown
Cranfield Precision Engineering UK
Co-Chairman Organising Committee
CONTINUING PROGRESS IN PRECISION ENGINEERING
It is a particular pleasure for me and my
colleagues on the Organising Committee to
welcome you to Kobe, Japan, for the 7th
International Precision Engineering Seminar.
The first of these events was held at
Cranfield, England, in May 1981 just two
years after the first publication of the
journal Precision Engineering. Since then
this conference with its own particular
style - one in which international experts in
particular aspects of precision engineering
are invited to chair and structure their own
sessions - has been held in several
countries. In 1983 it was sited at NBS/NIST,
Gaithersburg (Washington), USA, in 1985
Interlaken, Switzerland, a return to
Cranfield in 1987, and then in 1989 at
Monterey, California. This meeting was joint
with ASPE, the American Society for Precision
Engineering and was widely considered to have
been very successful. The increasing
participation by scientists and engineers
from Japan was highlighted by an outstanding
keynote speech given by Dr. Shoichiro
Yoshida, Senior Managing Director of NIKON
Corporation. Attendances continued to rise
as more than 20 different countries were
represented at the 1991, 6th IPES in
Braunschweig, Germany, when the German
partners were PTB and UPT Aachen.
This year the 7-IPES is jointly organised
with the oldest established and largest
Precision Engineering Society in the world.
xviii
JSPE. Furthermore, this is in the year when
this world famous society celebrates its 60th
anniversary; it is, therefore, a particular
pleasure and honour to hold the 7th IPES in
Kobe this May.
As in previous years, this will be a meeting
of the world's leading precision engineering
practitioners from areas of application as
diverse as sensors, actuators, scanning tip
microscopy, micro and nano machining
(including bio-machining), ultra precision
measuring machines, machine tools and large
optics for space technology. By studying the
proceedings of previous IPES meetings, it is
clear that continuing scientific and
technological progress truly is being made in
precision engineering and its important sub-
sets, micro-engineering and nanotechnology.
Professor R.V. Jones said in his introduction
to the first volume of the journal Precision
Engineering, "The self discipline acquired in
any one field of precision engineering will
enable the disciple to recognise
instinctively a fellow disciple in another
field as one with a similar feeling for
precision - the international freemasonry (or
brotherhood) that automatically exists
amongst those who strive for the best
possible product". It is also clear that
precision engineering in general and IPES and
similar meetings in particular, continue to
progress in attracting more scientists and
engineers from all over the world to meet and
join this international brotherhood. I
believe our meeting in Kobe will achieve this
in great measure and thus will be truly
memorable.
Again, welcome to Kobe and the 7 IPES.
WELCOME TO KOBE, KANSAI AND JAPAN!
For the first time, the International
Precision Engineering Seminar has landed in
Japan.
It is a great pleasure for me on the
Organizing Committee to welcome you to Kobe
for the 7th International Precision
Engineering Seminar. We have accepted more
than one hundred and thirty papers for either
Oral or Poster presentation, from twenty
countries. This fact shows without doubt the
significance of Precision Engineering in
advanced science and technology worldwide.
The Seminar starts with a Special Pre-
Conference day devoted to overview of the
state-of-the-art technologies in different
countries by key researchers in each country.
This is followed, on the same day, by the
Keynote Speech by Dr. H. Mizuno, Executive
Vice-President of Matsushita/Panasonic, who
talks on the symbiotic relationship between
electronics and precision engineering. Then
the Oral and Poster sessions and the Open
Forum take place in the following three days
in which the technical exhibition and
accompanying persons programmes are presented
in parallel. We are also very pleased to
offer a few days after the seminar itself,
days for interesting Technical Visits to
leading institutions in the Kansai area
(Osaka and Kobe) and Post Conference tours in
the Tokyo area.
Besides the technical activities, the city of
Kobe offers various opportunities to
understand modern and classic Japan, because
it is situated not only at one of the main
centres of industrial activities but also
close to Osaka and the ancient cities of
Kyoto and Nara. We sincerely hope you enjoy
a variety of aspects of Kobe and Japan.
XX
We are very pleased to host this important
international event and share its activities
with the members of the international and
local executive committees as well as with
international colleagues from all over the
world who participate in the Seminar.
Following six previous successful Seminars,
the 7-IPES, even in these difficult times, I
believe, will present an exciting opportunity
to exchange new ideas and discuss topics of
common interest with colleagues from all over
the world.
The Organizing Committee would like to
express its appreciation to the public and
private institutions which have supported the
7-IPES so generously.
In closing, many thanks again to the authors,
participants, supporters and colleagues whose
contributions have helped so much to ensure
the success of this meeting.
Naoya IKAWA
Co-Chairman
Precision Engineering and its Impact on
the Electronics Industry: Past, Present, and Future
Hiroyuki Mizuno, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President
& Member of the Board
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen:
And welcome to this evening's program and reception.
I would feel honored, at any time, to have the opportunity to
address this prestigious International Precision
Engineering Seminar. However, I feel especially privileged
to address you this year since this 7th IPE Seminar
coincides with, and in a sense serves to commemorate, the
60th Anniversary of the establishment of the Japan Society
for Precision Engineering.
And, I would like to congratulate this Society and the two
other institutions which jointly organized this seminar--
Britain's Cranfield Unit for Precision Engineering and
America's Precision Engineering journal--on their selection
of Kobe as this year's seminar site. In fact, it seems most
appropriate that we have convened here on Port lsland--a
totally man-made island which did not even exist 13 years
ago--which in itself represents a major feat of, and tribute
to, the science of precision engineering as applied to state-
of-the-art construction. The creation of this artificial
island required, among other things, some rather
sophisticated computer aided engineering, or CAE. And,
this of course was only possible as a result of advances in
precision semiconductor fabrication and other
technologies.
In addition, as you may know, Kobe is famous, in part, for
its colorful and historic Kitano-cho district, where you can
find a good number of antique stores specializing in the
sale of Japanese-made late 19th and early 20th Century
western style pendulum clocks. Of course, we all know
that clockmakers were the first to apply the theories of
physics and mechanics to the creation of a machine.
2
Indeed, Daniel Boorstin, the prominent American science &
technology historian, has written that "the enduring legacy
1
of the pioneer clockmakers was the basic technology of
machine tools" with the two prime examples being the gear
and the screw. Thus, both in the "New Kobe" and in the
"Old Kobe" we are easily reminded of the historical
antecedents to, and recent accomplishments in, the field of
precision engineering.
Since I am not a specialist in the field of precision
engineering per se, but am rather an electronics industry
executive, in my remarks tonight, I would like to offer my
views on the impact which precision engineering has had
on the electronics industry in the past and to speculate on
the role which it might play, or needs to play, in the future.
And, because other speakers at this seminar have prepared
very fine historical overviews of international progress in
precision engineering, I thought that I would try, where
possible, to point out Japan's historical and current
contributions to this field.
Essential Elements of Home Electronics Products
With regard to the impact of precision engineering on the
electronics industry, I believe that it can be said, without
fear of exaggeration, that almost all of today's most popular
electronic products owe their existence to breakthroughs in
what we now call "precision engineering". The reason for
this is that in order for electronic products to really take off
in the marketplace they must find wide acceptance in the
home. Thus, the term "home electronics" has entered into
our everyday vocabulary. Of course, the most essential
elements necessary for the acceptance of new electronic
products in the home market are: compactness or
"miniaturization", reliability, and low cost production and
sales, each of which derives directly from precision
engineering techniques.
For example, let's take a look at two of the most popular
home electronic products at present: the computer and
the VCR/camera-recorder.
1
Daniel J. Boorstin, 1983, The discoverers: A History
of Man's Search to Know his World and Himself, Random
House Publishers, New York, Page 64.
3
The Computer
As you may know, the first electronic computer, termed the
EN I AC, was completed in 1946 at a cost of 400,000 U.S.
dollars, which was a great deal of money at the time. It
was 18 feet high, 80 feet long, weighed 30 tons, and
contained 17,468 vacuum tubes. However, in terms of
performance, it was less powerful than a single present day
thumb-sized 4-bit microprocessor weighing just several
grams. It was also unreliable since its more than 17,000
tubes, operating at the rate of 100,000 pulses per second,
had a tendency to overheat and blow out. The machine
also contained only enough internal memory to handle the
numbers involved in the computation it was currently
performing. As a result, programs literally had to be wired
into ENIAC's complex circuitry.
The computer is of course a very different machine today,
thanks to the progress of LSI technology and the
development of new devices made possible by
breakthroughs in at least 3 important subset areas of
precision engineering: ultra-precision machining,
packaging, and thin film formation.
The personal computer's current wide appeal stems from
major advances in speed and memory size and the cost
reductions which they have engendered. Higher speed and
larger memory are the result of two major components:
integrated circuits and hard disk drives. Microprocessor
speed and large memory have been facilitated by large
scale integration using a smaller design rule. To make
each circuit element smaller in size, new process
technologies have had to be developed, such as chemical
vapor deposition, and electron beam lithography, etc.
Hard disk drives have also evolved dramatically in terms
of size and capacity during the past decade as the result of
advances in both large scale integration and thin film
formation. Every part of the disk drive has been made
smaller in size using newer processes and technology.
Smoother and flatter disk substrate, thinner and more
uniform magnetic media, narrower track width and gap
length on the read/write head have all been achieved.
4
Progress of LSI Technology & Devices
Since past is prologue, let's take a look at the "Progress of
LSI Technology and the Development of Devices". In terms
of memory production, the current state-of-the-art
technology is the 16M bit DRAM based on a 0.5 micron
design rule. For logic LSIs, 500,000-gate level chips have
been on the market for some time now. Eventually, when
an approximately 0.1 μητι design rule becomes available, it
will become possible to pack the computing power of a
mainframe computer onto a single chip!
Predictions for IC Technology In the 90s
In the meantime, the Japanese Ministry of International
Trade and Industry has recently issued its predictions with
regard to the advancement of IC technology up until the
year 2000. MITI is expecting by the year 2000 to see mass
production of 64M bit DRAMs and the achievement at the
product development level of a 1G bit DRAM with a design
rule of 0.15-0.2 microns.
The VCR/Camera-Recorder
As with the computer, the first video cassette tape
recorders were not suitable for home use due to their large
size, high cost, and lack of user-friendliness. But
breakthroughs in precision engineering have now enabled
VCRs and their successor, the "camera-recorder", to
become one of the everyday consumer's most valued
products.
However, the fact remains that today's VCR/camera-
recorder is the most complex consumer product ever made.
The VCR's/camera-recorder's high functionality and ease of
use were made possible by high density packaging
technology. And its stable and high quality image stems
from the recording mechanism. Almost all of the electronic
components in the VCR/camera-recorder had to be
specially designed and developed. And, automated
precision assembly machines were developed to make the
circuit boards.
The video recording mechanism, which consists of a
cylinder, video heads, a hydrodynamic bearing and a flat
direct drive motor, is an amalgamation of the most
advanced precision engineering techniques. For example,
the machining technology, used in cutting a beveled tape
