50 years of lasers and their influence on SMT stencils

The Laser World of Photonics in Munich is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The world’s first trade fair for lasers took place in 1973, 13 years after US researchers had generated a laser beam for the first time and changed the world forever.

This was the birth of a pioneering key technology that revolutionized medicine and research, communications technology and electronics, aerospace, industrial manufacturing and other areas.

Over the past 50 years, more and more new applications have been found for the highly focused light beams. Laser technology was soon to be used for a wide range of welding, drilling and cutting applications – and since the late 1980s also for cutting SMT stencils.

For 30 years now, Photocad has been offering laser-cut SMT stencils manufactured using world-leading LPFK technology. A laser marking system and automated finishing processes complete the production process. Further laser systems followed in 2009 and 2012 to increase production capacity to 20,000 stencils per year – thanks to the laser!

Laser-cut SMT stencils: self-configured and delivered the next working day