The Current State of Art in Ultraprecision Cutting Technology in Japan

INTRODUCTION U l t r a p r e c i s i o n m a c h i n i n g , e s p e c i a l l y micromachining is a key technology to realize the fabrication of small parts, small mechanisms and small robots with extremely high accuracy. Until now, etching and lithography based technologies are well known in the microfabrication fields, where such a material as silicon oxide is generally utilized. A problem of these technologies is the difficulty of producing 3-dimensional shapes with inclined and sculptured surfaces, which are inevitably required to construct a variety of microproducts.