ABSTRACT
Precision machining has been continuously evolving over the last decade to reach subnanometer accuracy. Professor Taniguchi has predicted the evolution of the machine tool precision based on its past history as shown in Figure 4.1. It shows, for example, that components will reach a precision close to subnanometer in 2010. Machines have to be designed to achieve better precision than the expected precision for the products, and so they need to achieve better than subnanometer accuracy by 2020.
