AZoM from AZO spoke with Dr. Ralf Dupont, founder, and CEO of Levicron, about new solutions to respond to rapidly changing demands in Semicon Industries.

After outlining the exceptional growth of Semicon industries to supply parts and components to industrial and home automation (Industry 4.0, IoT) Ralf also explains obvious changes in component designs, like electronic packaging, and the resulting changes in manufacturing techniques. Parts that are getting smaller and smaller and assemblies of these to save space lead to a necessity of more automated machining systems with significantly improved ththermaleral stability and higher spindle speeds.

Back in 2020 Levicron recognized these changes and created a new spindle design that can cope with these demands and which is close to being shipped for field tests.

With Levicron’s new (U)ASD-H20A this spindle solution not only gives up to 150.000 rpm speed for small tools, but a strict optimization for best shaft dynamics and thermal behavior also leads to tool run-outs and thermal shaft growth smaller than 1 micron. The well-known thin-film liquid cooling not only results in a spindle soak time of fewer than 3 minutes but also isolates all heat sources of the spindle from the machine. Along with their spring-less and automated shaft HSK-clamping units “SLH-x” in size HSK-E20 automated, monitored, and controlled tool changes can be added to this list. And is one reason, why even this high-speed air-bearing spindle from Levicron manages not to have any critical speeds where the rotation frequency is equal or close to any natural frequency of the bearing system or shaft.

Having a tick in the box for Semicon (electronics, optoelectronics) Ralf outlines the benefits for other industries like the watch industry, precision molds, microfluidics, and others.

Other ongoing developments in Levicron then display the general direction of Levicron according to their slogan “Ultra Precision meets CNC Performance” which not only covers spindle solutions but dynamics analyzing systems or spring-less HSK clamping units.