ABSTRACT
The demand for microcomponents has encouraged the scaling down of traditional macromanufacturing to micro-length-scale manufacturing. Fundamental issues concerning micrometal forming have been studied intensively over the past 10 years. The major issues examined were the mechanism of material deformation, tool-interface conditions, material properties characterization, process modeling and analysis, prediction of forming limit, and process design optimization. Geiger et al. (2001) dened microforming as the production of parts or structures with at least two dimensions in the submillimeter range. Microforming can be dened more precisely as the process of manufacturing a part or a feature by plastic deformation, at least one orthogonal view of which can be enclosed in a square of side 1 mm. These small components are used in microsystem technologies (MST) and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Typical examples of such components are pins for IC carriers, fasteners, microscrews, lead frames, sockets, and various kinds of connecting elements (Engel and Eckstein, 2002).
