PI Ceramic employs a large number of modern production techniques which make it possible to fulfill customengineered requirements for medium-sized and small production runs in very short times, as well as to manage the transition to large production runs reliably and inexpensively.

Ceramic shaping processes

The basic technology for the manufactoring of piezoceramic components is the pressing of shaped bodies using spraydried granular material. This is achieved using high-capacity presses with up to 1 MN compacting force. The shaped bodies are either manufactured true-to-size, taking into account the sintering contraction, or with machining excesses which are removed to achieve the required precision. By using high-production inboard diamond sawing equipment, it is possible to manufacture reasonably priced components (disks, plates, etc.) with a thickness as low as 0.2 mm. Modern ultrasonic machining techniques are used to manufacture thin-walled tubes with wall thicknesses of 0.5 mm as standard products.

Cofiring technology is available, in particular for the production of multilayer components (PICMA series). In it, after the application of noble metal electrodes by means of special screen printing techniques and subsequent lamination, a ceramic film of at least 25 µm - made in a process known as tape casting - is applied and sintered in a onestep process.