Contact mask technique for laser structuring of 3-D MID

Molded interconnect devices (MID) are promising polymer components for many industrial applications to make complex functional components containing circuits possible, and to avoid material and production costs. Current examples in the automotive field are a car dash board and a rear stop light. For suitable large scale production technologies for complex 3D MIDs, development of new manufacturing processes is essential. Different technologies are used to generate circuit patterns on the substrate by photoimaging. The geometrical information can be transformed by using different mask technologies. Besides the common mask projection technique, a contact mask which contains the circuit geometry is also suitable. The circuits are therefore generated in original scale by IR laser radiation on a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) sheet. The blackened polymer is nontransparent for the UV radiation of common UV lamps and excimer lasers in particular, used for imaging of photosensitive resists. For three-dimensional masks, the sheet is formed by a deep drawing process.