Lasers in Electronics Manufacturing - Then, Now and Tomorrow

THEN: Invented in 1960, it took almost a decade that the laser found its first use cases. It took almost another decade until the laser started to gain importance in industrial applications. NOW: Since a few decades lasers are commodity in the manufacturing industry. Nowadays around 25% of the whole world-wide laser business is dedicated to electronics manufacturing industry. The EUV project revolutionized the electronics industry just a few years ago by enabling nanostructures on chips. TOMORROW: New lasers will enter the electronics manufacturing market providing either new wavelengths and / or short pulses and / or higher power. New (e.g. diffractive) optics will allow splitting the beam in multiple beams simultaneously - what a benefit e.g. for via drilling. Machine learning will assist in detecting material composition, geometry, focus position etc.