Resources · Reference

The Visitech technology glossary

DLP imaging, direct imaging lithography and additive manufacturing carry a vocabulary that is half acronym. This is what we mean by each of them — in plain terms, written by the engineers who build the hardware.

Browse the terms Data sheets

A to Z

Every term, defined

Search for a term, or narrow the list to a theme. Every entry links to itself, so you can send a colleague straight to the definition you meant.

135 terms

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3D printing
The everyday name for additive manufacturing: building a part up in layers from a digital model.
1 page — what 3D printing links to

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4K
A DMD resolution of 4096 × 2160 — nearly nine million native pixels addressed in a single exposure, without stitching two smaller frames together.
µSLA
Micro-stereolithography: stereolithography at feature sizes measured in single microns, for micro-optics, microfluidics and other parts where the resolution matters more than the build volume.
1 product · 1 page · 6 articles · 1 document — what µSLA links to

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A

Additive manufacturing
Building a part by adding material layer by layer from a digital model, rather than cutting it away from a block. Also called 3D printing; the term is preferred where the output is a production part rather than a prototype.
4 pages · 6 articles — what Additive manufacturing links to

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Advanced packaging
The set of techniques for connecting dies at higher density than a conventional package allows — fan-out, flip chip, chiplets, interposers — and increasingly where the hardest lithography outside the fab happens.
2 pages · 6 articles — what Advanced packaging links to

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Artwork
The pattern data to be exposed — the layout as it comes from CAD, in a format such as Gerber, ODB++, GDSII or OASIS.

B

BEAM30
A LUXBEAM photohead for coarse, high-power lithography at 30 µm line/space and above: a 1–7 channel four-peak LED source for thick copper, power modules and high-current substrates.
1 product · 1 document — what BEAM30 links to

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Bifrost
Visitech's LED driver. It holds the light source at constant flux using optical feedback rather than fixed current, which is what keeps power uniformity better than 99% across an exposure instead of drifting as the LED warms.
1 article — what Bifrost links to

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Build area
The area a machine can expose without moving the substrate — for a multihead or scrolling system, the area covered by the whole arrangement.
3 products · 1 page · 6 articles · 2 documents — what Build area links to

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Build size
The dimensions of the largest part a machine can make, in all three axes.
6 articles — what Build size links to

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C

CAD
Computer-aided design — the software a part or a circuit is designed in, and the source of the artwork a photohead ultimately exposes.
Calibration camera
The camera that measures the substrate — fiducials, distortion, position — before exposure, so the pattern can be corrected to it. It is what makes per-panel correction possible rather than theoretical.
Chip first
A fan-out sequence in which the dies are placed and moulded before the wiring is built on top of them. Fast, but the dies move slightly during moulding, so the wiring has to be adapted to where they actually ended up.
Chip last
A fan-out sequence in which the wiring is built first and the dies attached to it afterwards. Slower, but the wiring is not at the mercy of die shift.
Consumer electronics
Phones, laptops, wearables — the volume market whose packaging density drives much of the demand for fine-line imaging.
1 article — what Consumer electronics links to

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Contrast ratio
The ratio between the light in an exposed pixel and the light leaking into one that is off. Low contrast fogs the areas meant to stay unexposed, which shows up as lost line/space rather than as a dim picture.
1 product · 1 document — what Contrast ratio links to

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Cooling system
How the heat is taken away — air or liquid. Liquid cooling holds the optics at a steadier temperature, which matters because a warm optical train drifts and a drifting optical train moves the pattern.
6 products · 1 article · 3 documents — what Cooling system links to

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Cost of ownership
What a machine costs to run over its life, not what it costs to buy: consumables, replacement parts, uptime, energy and the operator time it takes. LED sources with no lamp to replace are argued for on this basis.
1 page · 2 articles — what Cost of ownership links to

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Critical dimension
The feature size a process is measured against — the one dimension that has to hold, everywhere on the substrate and from panel to panel.

D

Data format
Which artwork formats the head accepts directly — Gerber, ODB++, GDSII, OASIS and the bitmap formats — and therefore how much conversion sits between CAD and the machine.
1 product · 1 document — what Data format links to

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Data throughput
How fast image data can be moved into the light engine. It is a real limit on scrolling exposure: the pattern has to arrive as fast as the stage travels, which is why 10 G links and streaming exist.
Die
One individual chip, as cut from the wafer it was made on.
1 article — what Die links to

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Die shift
The small movement of dies out of their intended positions during moulding in a fan-out process. It is why the wiring layer has to be aligned to where the dies actually are, panel by panel.
Direct image sintering
Sintering a whole layer at once by projecting its image onto the powder bed, rather than tracing it with a scanned laser spot. Visitech's term for the DLP approach to powder bed fusion.
1 product · 6 articles — what Direct image sintering links to

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Direct imaging lithography
Lithography with no photomask: the pattern comes from a digital file and is written straight onto the substrate. Every panel can therefore be exposed differently, which is what makes per-panel correction possible.
1 page · 4 articles — what Direct imaging lithography links to

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DIS
Direct image sintering — Visitech's term for sintering a whole layer at once with a DLP light engine, rather than tracing it with a scanned laser spot.
1 product · 6 articles — what DIS links to

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DLP
Digital Light Processing — Texas Instruments' imaging technology, built on a chip of millions of individually tilting micromirrors. It is what lets a photohead form a whole pattern at once, with no mask and no moving optics.
1 product · 4 pages · 6 articles — what DLP links to

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DMD
Digital Micromirror Device — the DLP chip itself. Each micromirror is one pixel: tilted one way it sends light to the substrate, tilted the other it sends it into a beam dump. The DMD type largely sets a photohead's resolution and speed.
6 products · 2 pages · 4 articles · 3 documents — what DMD links to

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DMD Type
Which Texas Instruments micromirror device is in the head. It sets the native resolution and the frame rate, and with the lens it sets the pixel pitch — so it is the first line of a datasheet worth reading.
6 products · 3 documents — what DMD Type links to

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E

Edge blending
Overlapping two projected fields and grading the light across the overlap, so the seam between them does not show as a line in the finished layer.
Ethernet
The network standard the light engines are controlled and fed data over. Industrial Ethernet means an integrator needs no proprietary interface card to talk to the head.
1 page · 2 articles — what Ethernet links to

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Exposure
The act of projecting the pattern onto the substrate, and the dose of light delivered while doing it. Both the pattern and the dose have to be right for the layer to develop as designed.
1 product · 1 page · 6 articles · 1 document — what Exposure links to

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Exposure speed
How fast the head can deliver the required dose over an area — the throughput figure once the material's sensitivity is known.
1 product · 1 document — what Exposure speed links to

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F

Fan-out panel level packaging
Fan-out packaging carried out on a large rectangular panel instead of a round wafer, so far more packages are processed in one pass. Shortened to FOPLP.
Fan-out wafer level packaging
Packaging in which a die's connections are fanned out beyond its own footprint into a moulded area around it, so a small die can carry more I/O than its edges would allow. Shortened to FOWLP.
FCBGA
Flip chip ball grid array — a package where the die is mounted face-down onto the substrate and the package connects to the board through a grid of solder balls underneath.
3 products · 3 documents — what FCBGA links to

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FCCSP
Flip chip chip scale package — a flip-chip package barely larger than the die inside it.
4 products · 4 documents — what FCCSP links to

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Fine-line
Shorthand for work at line widths small enough that the substrate's own movement and the imaging system's accuracy become the limit — in PCB and packaging terms, roughly 15 µm and below.
3 products · 1 article · 3 documents — what Fine-line links to

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Firmware
The software running inside the light engine itself, as opposed to on the machine's controller.
1 page · 1 article — what Firmware links to

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Flip chip ball grid array
A package in which the die is mounted face-down and the package connects to the board through a grid of solder balls underneath. Shortened to FCBGA.
Flip chip chip scale package
A flip-chip package barely larger than the die inside it. Shortened to FCCSP.
FOPLP
Fan-out panel level packaging — fan-out packaging carried out on a large rectangular panel rather than a round wafer, so far more packages are processed in one pass.
3 products · 5 articles · 3 documents — what FOPLP links to

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FOWLP
Fan-out wafer level packaging — the same idea on a wafer: the die's connections are fanned out beyond its own footprint into a moulded area around it, so a small die can carry more I/O than its edge would allow.
3 products · 5 articles · 3 documents — what FOWLP links to

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FPGA
Field-programmable gate array — a chip whose logic is configured after manufacture. In a photohead it is what moves image data to the DMD fast enough to keep up with the stage.
Frame rate
How many patterns per second the DMD can display. With data throughput it sets how fast a scrolling exposure can run.
Frame sync
The signal that ties each projected pattern to the motion system's position, so the right frame lands in the right place during a scrolling exposure.
5 products · 4 documents — what Frame sync links to

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G

GDSII
A binary file format for integrated-circuit and photomask layouts. One of the artwork formats a photohead can be fed directly.
Gerber
The long-standing PCB artwork format: one file per layer, describing the copper, the soldermask and the legend as shapes to be drawn.

H

HDI
High-density interconnect — printed circuit boards built with finer lines, smaller vias and more layers than a conventional board, to fit more connections into the same area.
3 products · 1 article · 3 documents — what HDI links to

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Heterogeneous chiplet
A design built from several smaller dies — often made on different processes, by different suppliers — packaged together instead of being drawn as one large chip.
4 products · 4 documents — what Heterogeneous chiplet links to

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High-density interconnect
Board construction using finer lines, smaller vias and more layers than a conventional PCB, to route more connections through the same area. Usually shortened to HDI.

I

Inner layer
A conductor layer inside a multilayer board, laminated between others. Inner layers are imaged before lamination, so their registration to the layers added later is what decides whether the finished board works.
1 article — what Inner layer links to

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Internet of Things
Networked devices outside computers and phones — sensors, meters, controls. Their volume and their small, dense boards are part of what the fine-line PCB market is built on.

L

L/S
Line/space — the standard way of stating how fine a lithography process can go: the width of a conductor and the gap beside it, usually as one number when both are equal, e.g. "15 µm L/S".
LAMA
The software platform and API that drives the LRS light engines. LAMA Standard ships with every engine and works with any motion controller; LAMA Pro adds sub-pixelation, edge blending, real-time warping and data streaming.
1 product · 1 page · 6 articles — what LAMA links to

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LASER
A light source of a single, tightly defined wavelength. Some LLS heads offer a laser instead of an LED where the process needs the narrower spectrum and the higher power density it gives.
1 product · 6 articles — what LASER links to

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LED
Light-emitting diode. The light source in most LUXBEAM heads: it switches instantly, has no warm-up and no lamp to replace, and its output is set electronically rather than with a shutter.
6 products · 2 pages · 6 articles · 4 documents — what LED links to

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LED driver
The electronics that power and regulate the LED source. Holding the flux constant rather than the current is what keeps the dose repeatable as the LED warms up.
5 products · 1 article · 3 documents — what LED driver links to

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LED safety switch
An interlock that cuts the light source when the enclosure it is built into is opened. A UV source at these powers is a hazard the integrator has to design around, and this is the hook to do it with.
Lens
The projection optics between the DMD and the substrate. The lens choice sets the pixel pitch, the field size and the working distance together — they cannot be picked independently.
5 products · 4 articles · 3 documents — what Lens links to

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Light engine
The optical subsystem that turns image data into a projected pattern: light source, DMD, projection optics and the electronics that drive them. The LRS range are light engines.
3 pages · 1 article — what Light engine links to

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Light source
What produces the light: an LED array or a laser. It sets the wavelength, the available power and, through its stability, how repeatable the exposure is.
6 products · 2 pages · 6 articles · 4 documents — what Light source links to

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Line/space
The width of a conductor and the gap next to it — the standard measure of how fine a lithography process can go. Usually written as one figure when both are equal, e.g. "15 µm line/space".
4 articles — what Line/space links to

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Line edge roughness
How ragged the edge of an exposed line is when looked at closely. It matters most where the line width is small enough that the roughness is a real fraction of it.
1 product · 1 document — what Line edge roughness links to

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Line width
The width of a single exposed feature. How closely it matches the design across the whole substrate is one of the two numbers, with registration, that a lithography process is judged on.
Liquid cooling
Cooling by circulating fluid rather than moving air. Steadier optical temperature, no fan vibration, and the heat leaves the machine instead of the room.
3 articles — what Liquid cooling links to

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Lithography
Transferring a pattern onto a substrate with light. In electronics manufacturing it is how conductors, soldermask and other layers are defined before they are etched or developed.
1 product · 5 pages · 3 articles · 1 document — what Lithography links to

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LLS
LUXBEAM Lithography System — Visitech's photohead family for direct imaging lithography, from LLS30 at 30 µm line/space down to LLS1000 and finer. Every head in the range runs the same LURIA software, so a process proven on one carries to the next.
1 page · 6 articles — what LLS links to

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LRS
LUXBEAM Rapid System — Visitech's family of DLP light engines for additive manufacturing and industrial imaging. An LRS is the optical and electronic core a machine builder mounts and drives; the machine around it is the customer's.
1 product · 2 pages · 2 articles — what LRS links to

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LURIA
The control software behind the LLS photoheads. It reads the substrate as it actually is before every exposure and adapts the artwork in real time — scaling, rotating and warping the pattern to fit the panel in front of it rather than the panel it was designed for.
1 page — what LURIA links to

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LUXBEAM®
Visitech's brand for its DLP imaging hardware: the LRS light engines, the LLS lithography systems and the photoheads built on them. A LUXBEAM unit is a subsystem meant to be integrated into somebody else's machine, not a finished tool.
3 pages — what LUXBEAM® links to

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M

Machine builder
The company that designs and sells the finished production machine, and integrates subsystems such as a photohead into it. Visitech's direct customer.
1 product · 2 pages — what Machine builder links to

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Maskless
Without a photomask. A maskless process has no mask to make, store, align or replace when the design changes — the design change is a file change.
3 articles — what Maskless links to

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Maximum build area
The largest area an additive machine can expose in one layer, using however many heads the configuration has.
1 product · 1 document — what Maximum build area links to

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Maximum panel size
The largest substrate a lithography configuration can handle end to end.
1 product · 1 document — what Maximum panel size links to

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MCx
The LRS-MCx series: Visitech's multi-channel UV light engines for additive manufacturing, offered in 4K, WQXGA, HD and NIR variants for different combinations of build area, resolution and process.
5 products · 2 pages · 6 articles · 5 documents — what MCx links to

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MEMS
Micro-electro-mechanical systems — devices with moving mechanical parts built at chip scale. A DMD is one: several million hinged mirrors on a die.
4 products · 2 articles · 4 documents — what MEMS links to

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Metrology
Measuring the shape and size of physical objects; at Visitech, DLP-based 3D metrology. A projector casts precise light patterns onto a surface and a camera reconstructs its shape from how the patterns deform. Visitech Americas, the former Keynote Photonics team, serves this market.
1 page — what Metrology links to

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Moore's law
The observation that the number of transistors on a chip roughly doubles every couple of years. As it slows at the silicon level, packaging is where much of the remaining density is being found.
Motion stage
The moving platform that positions the substrate under the head.
1 product · 1 page · 6 articles · 1 document — what Motion stage links to

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Motion system
The stages and drives that move the substrate, the head, or both. In a scrolling system its accuracy and the exposure are one problem, not two.
2 products · 2 pages · 6 articles · 1 document — what Motion system links to

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Mounting distance
The distance from the head's mounting face to the substrate — the number an integrator actually builds the frame to, since it is measured from the surface they bolt to.
Multihead
A configuration using several photoheads or light engines side by side to cover a larger area than one could, at the same resolution.
1 product · 2 articles · 1 document — what Multihead links to

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Native image size
The area one exposure covers at the work plane, with no stitching or stage movement. Pixel pitch multiplied by the DMD's resolution.
1 product · 1 document — what Native image size links to

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NEOS
The shared hardware platform under the current LUXBEAM generation: liquid cooling, industrial Ethernet and LAMA Standard software, common across the products so an integration done once carries to the next model.
2 pages · 5 articles — what NEOS links to

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NIR
Near-infrared — light just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum. NIR heads are used where the process is driven by heat rather than by a photochemical reaction, such as sintering.
1 product · 1 page · 6 articles · 1 document — what NIR links to

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O

OASIS
The successor format to GDSII for layout data — the same job, in far smaller files, which matters once a layer runs to gigabytes.
ODB++
A PCB manufacturing data format that carries the whole job — copper layers, soldermask, drill data and the netlist — in one structure rather than a set of separate files.
Operation mode
How the head exposes: scrolling past a moving substrate, or static over a stationary one. The choice drives throughput, accuracy and how the motion system has to be built around it.
6 products · 1 document — what Operation mode links to

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Optical multiplexing
Combining several light paths into one output, to put more power through a single head than one source could deliver.
1 article — what Optical multiplexing links to

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Optics
The lenses and mirrors that carry light from the source to the DMD and from the DMD to the substrate.
6 articles — what Optics links to

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Organic substrate
A package substrate made from resin and glass fibre rather than ceramic or silicon. Cheaper and available in large panels — and it moves with heat and humidity, which is why the pattern has to be corrected to the panel.
4 products · 4 documents — what Organic substrate links to

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Outer layer
The conductor layer on the surface of a board, carrying the pads that components are soldered to.
4 products · 1 article · 4 documents — what Outer layer links to

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Panel
A large rectangular substrate. Processing on panels instead of wafers puts more product through per pass, at the cost of a substrate that is harder to hold flat and stable.
6 products · 1 article · 5 documents — what Panel links to

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Part
One finished item produced by an additive machine.
1 product · 2 pages — what Part links to

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PBF
Powder bed fusion — the family of additive processes that build a part by fusing successive layers of powder, of which selective laser sintering is one.
1 product · 1 page · 6 articles — what PBF links to

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PCB
Printed circuit board — the board that carries and connects a product's electronics. Direct imaging lithography is how the copper pattern and the soldermask get onto it.
4 products · 1 page · 6 articles · 4 documents — what PCB links to

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Photohead
A complete imaging unit — DMD, optics, light source, driver and control electronics in one housing — that a machine builder mounts into their own system. It exposes the pattern; the machine around it handles the substrate.
1 product · 1 page · 6 articles · 1 document — what Photohead links to

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Pixel pitch
The distance from one projected pixel to the next at the work plane, in microns. Together with resolution it sets both the field size and the smallest feature.
1 product · 5 articles · 1 document — what Pixel pitch links to

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Polymer
The resin an additive part is built from in stereolithography, and the material class the resist films used in lithography belong to.
2 products · 1 page · 6 articles · 1 document — what Polymer links to

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Powder bed fusion
The family of additive processes that build a part by fusing successive layers of powder. Shortened to PBF.
2 products · 1 page · 6 articles · 1 document — what Powder bed fusion links to

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Power consumption
What the unit draws from the supply. It is a cabinet and cooling number as much as an electrical one.
6 products · 3 documents — what Power consumption links to

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Power uniformity
How evenly the light is distributed across the exposed field, as a percentage. Uneven power means the same pattern develops differently in different places, so this number limits what the line-width spec can honestly claim.
6 products · 3 documents — what Power uniformity links to

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Printed circuit board
The board that carries and connects a product's electronics. Shortened to PCB.
Projector
An optical unit that images a pattern onto a surface at a distance. An industrial projector is specified by its output power, wavelength and pixel pitch at the work plane, not by brightness and contrast.
5 products · 2 pages · 4 documents — what Projector links to

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Projector output power
The optical power the head delivers at the work plane, in watts. With the material's required dose it is what sets how fast a layer can be exposed.
5 products · 4 documents — what Projector output power links to

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PSU
Power supply unit — the separate box that feeds a light engine. Its rating is part of what an integrator has to plan cabinet space and cooling around.
5 products · 1 article · 3 documents — what PSU links to

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Registration
How accurately one layer lines up with the one under it. On a substrate that has stretched or warped since the previous layer, good registration means correcting the pattern rather than assuming the substrate is where it should be.
1 article — what Registration links to

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Resolution
How small a feature the system can form. In a DLP system it follows from the DMD's pixel count and the optics that image it onto the substrate.
6 products · 3 pages · 1 article · 3 documents — what Resolution links to

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Scrolling
Exposing while the substrate moves continuously past the head, the pattern streaming to the DMD in step with the motion. It covers large areas without the start-stop of a stepper.
2 products · 2 pages · 2 articles · 1 document — what Scrolling links to

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Selective laser sintering
Powder bed fusion in which a scanned laser fuses the powder point by point. Shortened to SLS.
1 product · 1 article — what Selective laser sintering links to

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Semiconductor
A material whose conductivity can be controlled, and by extension the industry that builds chips from it.
6 articles — what Semiconductor links to

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Sintering
Fusing powder into a solid with heat, without fully melting it.
1 product · 6 articles — what Sintering links to

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SiP
System in package — several dies, and often passive components, combined inside one package so the finished part behaves as a single component on the board.
3 articles — what SiP links to

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SLS
Selective laser sintering — an additive process in which a laser fuses powder layer by layer. Its DLP equivalent exposes a whole layer at once instead of tracing it.
1 product · 4 articles — what SLS links to

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Soldermask
The protective layer over a board's copper, opened only where components are to be soldered. On fine-pitch boards its openings have to be placed as accurately as the copper underneath.
3 products · 3 documents — what Soldermask links to

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Stacking
Arranging several light engines over the same area so their fields combine — for more power, more coverage, or both.
1 page · 4 articles — what Stacking links to

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Static / stacked
Exposing with the substrate held still, one field at a time — and, where more area or more power is needed, several heads stacked over the same region. Slower than scrolling, and where the ultimate precision is available.
Stepper
A lithography tool that exposes one field, moves the substrate, and exposes the next — as opposed to scrolling continuously past the substrate.
4 articles — what Stepper links to

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Stereolithography
Building a part by curing liquid photopolymer with light, layer by layer. A DLP engine cures a whole layer in one exposure.
1 page · 6 articles — what Stereolithography links to

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Stitching
Building one large pattern out of several exposures placed side by side. The accuracy of the joins is what decides whether the result behaves as one continuous pattern.
1 product · 1 document — what Stitching links to

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Sub-pixelation
Placing an edge between two pixels rather than on one, by modulating what the neighbouring mirrors do. It buys a finer effective grid than the pixel pitch alone would give.
1 article — what Sub-pixelation links to

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Substrate
Whatever is being exposed: a panel, a wafer, a board, a package carrier. The word is used when the process does not depend on which of those it is.
6 products · 1 article · 5 documents — what Substrate links to

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Subsystem
A complete functional unit meant to be built into a larger machine rather than used on its own. Everything Visitech makes is a subsystem: the customer builds the machine.
4 pages · 1 article — what Subsystem links to

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System in package
Several dies, and often passive components, combined inside one package so the finished part behaves as a single component. Shortened to SiP.
1 article — what System in package links to

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T

Texas Instruments
The semiconductor company that developed and manufactures DLP and the DMD chips at the heart of every LUXBEAM product.
1 page · 3 articles — what Texas Instruments links to

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Throughput
How much a machine gets through in a given time — panels an hour, parts a shift. The number an integrator is usually buying.
6 products · 1 page · 1 article · 5 documents — what Throughput links to

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Wafer
A thin round disc of semiconductor material, the form in which chips are made. Round, so it wastes the corners of any rectangular pattern — which is the argument for panel-level processing.
4 products · 1 article · 4 documents — what Wafer links to

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Warping
Deforming the pattern before exposure so that it fits a substrate that is not the shape it was designed for — scaling, rotating and locally distorting the artwork to match the panel actually in the machine.
1 article — what Warping links to

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Wavelength
The colour of the light, in nanometres. It has to match what the resist or the material responds to — 365, 375, 385, 405 nm are the usual UV choices, with NIR used where the process is thermal.
3 articles — what Wavelength links to

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Working distance
The distance from the last optical surface to the substrate. It is fixed by the lens, and it is one of the first constraints a machine has to be designed around.
WQXGA
A DMD resolution of 2560 × 1600. The workhorse format across much of the LUXBEAM range: a good balance of field size against pixel pitch for both lithography and additive manufacturing.
2 articles — what WQXGA links to

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WUXGA
A DMD resolution of 1920 × 1200.
WXGA
A DMD resolution of 1280 × 800 — the compact format, chosen where a smaller, faster frame suits the process better than a larger one.

Y

Yield
The proportion of finished units that pass. On fine-pitch work it is decided largely by registration and line-width control, which is where imaging either earns its place or does not.
2 pages · 6 articles — what Yield links to

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Still not clear?

Ask the people who built it

A definition only goes so far. Tell us the substrate, the line/space you are aiming at and the format, and we will come back with what it means for your machine — usually within two business days.

Ask an engineer