Customer requirements: Mingseal produces products for the 3C industry (computer, communication and consumer electronics). The main product is an adhesive dispenser for camera modules. In the past, igus® energy chain systems E3 and E6, which are already suitable for ISO class 1 according to IPA, were used as the energy supply. Nowadays, however, the market demands even greater freedom from particles (and therefore theoretically an even better ISO class) than before, especially for mobile phone camera modules. The reason for this is the ever-increasing number of pixels in mobile phone cameras, because if there is just one particle on these modules, the entire module is abandoned and the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and the yield (YIELD) of the system drop enormously.
Our solutions: In the first step, the customer had to replace the energy chain with other products such as welded cleanroom ribbon cables. The disadvantages of this solution soon became apparent: on the one hand, the welded ribbon cables could not be opened to add or replace cables and, on the other hand, the cables broke very quickly because they had to support themselves. After just six months, the first defects appeared on these welded cables, which in turn led to system downtime. The igus® cleanroom-energy supply e-skin® convinced the engineers at Mingseal. The unique corrugated tube for cleanrooms, consisting of an upper and lower shell, combined the requirements of the engineers with regard to openability, inherent rigidity, compactness and, of course, the highest cleanroom suitability according to ISO class 1. The compact e-skin® series SKS20 will be installed in new machines in the future.