NEW TECHNOLOGY SHORTENS DESIGN/MANUFACTURING LEADTIME.

One of the challenges facing the design engineer in today's fast-changing telecom and consumer electronics markets is to find ways to shorten the development cycle and lower the costs of bringing new products to market. A similar challenge involves the qualification of electronic materials such as lossy microwave absorbers and low loss dielectrics to improve electrical performance of telecom and consumer electronics products. Here the design engineer is usually faced with the process of working with a supplier to identify die tooling requirements and dealing with long lead-times for prototype parts. Added to this is the high cost of such die tools before qualification can even begin.

Emerson & Cuming Microwave Products has recently introduced water-jet CAD/CAM technology at their Randolph, Mass., manufacturing facility to help reduce the turnaround time on prototypes parts. Now the design engineer can provide drawings and have parts cut in a matter of days rather than weeks. This cutting technology is suitable for the complete line of ECCOSORB brand microwave absorbing materials including elastomers, foam and rigid products. Likewise, low loss dielectric parts under the ECCOSTOCK brand name are also available as well as parts made from ECCOSHIELD conductive elastomers. Parts with complex dimensions are not amenable to the process.

Advanced Mold-in-Place Technology Benefits Users of Liquid Cast Microwave

Absorbing Materials

Users of ECCOSORB(R) MIP Mold-in-Place technology are now benefiting from the economies and increased throughput of new state-of-the-art auto dispensing equipment designed to meet the increasing demand for liquid cast microwave absorbing materials.

According to Mike Plante, director of sales and marketing, "We have recently expanded production throughput at Emerson & Cuming Microwave Products' Randolph, MA so we can significantly reduce fabrication costs and improve reliability for design engineers and project managers." He concluded by saying, "The advanced auto-dispensing technology is expected to accelerate the growth in value added Mold-in-Place operations for both RF and microwave enclosures."

Applications generally involve cavity resonance issues that are addressed with microwave absorbing materials. Traditionally, adhesive backed absorbers were die cut and manually applied to each cavity. Advanced Mold-in-Place technology now fully automates the precision loading of absorber materials to molded or machined housings as a separate value added operation.

Emerson & Cuming Microwave Products, Inc., an ISO 9001 company, is a world leader in the development and manufacture of ECCOSORB(R), microwave absorbing materials and anechoic chambers; ECCOSTOCK(R) dielectric materials for low loss RF and microwave applications; and ECCOSHIELD(R), electrically conductive sheets, caulks, adhesives and coatings. Emerson & Cuming Microwave Products maintains manufacturing facilities in Randolph, Massachusetts (US) and Westerlo, Belgium.

For over 50 years, the company has produced leading edge materials and engineered solutions for the wireless communications, military, automotive, aerospace and biomedical markets.

For additional information, call [phone] or 781-961-9600 or visit http://www.eccosorb.com