Extreme ultraviolet, laser cutting and femto second lasers are major planks in Trumpf's strategy for the next 20 years, its vice chairman Peter Leibinger told delegates at Laser World of Photonics.
Speaking on the first day of the trade show, Leibinger announced the company's first femotsecond laser product and spoke of the strategy that sees diodes as the key element for the laser for the next 20 years, and the cutting and solid state laser cladding markets as being important to Trumpf.
Talking about the laser as an industrial tool being at a critical point, Leibinger, who is also the president of the laser technology and electronics division, said: 'Microprocessing is on the point of opening a door – to what, we don't know yet.'
Reviewing his company's performance, Leibinger underlined the fact that 70 per cent of all its revenues come from laser technology. 'The main growth has been the laser,' Leibinger said, explaining the company's 15 per cent annual growth average since the 1960s.
Extreme UV (EUV) is seen as important because of the microelectronics industry's need for smaller microprocessors. The 10nm features needed for the next generation of microchips can be produced with EUV.
The automotive industry has been retooling and switching to laser for some of its welding and other processes. The cutting laser is an important part of this greater readiness for different sectors to consider lasers instead of their traditional manufacturing technologies.
Trumpf's TruMicro 5050 Femto Edition is an infrared laser with a beam quality of M² < 1.3 and at an average power of 40W, has 800 femtosecond pulses.
