Dear Behraad,

in my experience, even high-resolution Linotronics & co. still show a
considerable roughness along the edge of printed features. We have had
better experience with laser plotter typically used for film making in the
printed-circuit-board business. These plotters work a bit different from
typesetters and show better edge quality. Resolution goes up to 10kdpi.

For more info, check this publication:
"Rapid Prototyping of 2D Structures with Feature Sizes Larger than 8 um",
Linder, V.; Wu, H.; Jiang, X.; Whitesides, G. M.;
Anal. Chem. 2003; 75(10); 2522-2527.

Best regards,

Jan

*******************************
Dr. Jan Lichtenberg
Team Leader Biosensor and Microfluidics Group

Physical Electronics Laboratory
ETH Zurich
Hoenggerberg, HPT H4.2
CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland

Phone:  +41-1-633 2187
Fax:    +41-1-633 1054
E-mail: lichtenb@phys.ethz.ch
WWWs:   www.iqe.ethz.ch/pel
        www.janlichtenberg.de

*******************************

-----Original Message-----
From: Behraad Bahreyni [mailto:bahreyni@EE.UManitoba.CA]
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 4:51 PM
To: mems-talk@memsnet.org
Subject: [mems-talk] Printed masks

Hi everybody,

  We often use the masks printed by a high quality printer for proof of
concept or for cases where the dimensions are larger than about 25um.
The company that prints the masks for us on transparent sheets has a printer
with 2540dpi resolution (10um line width), but if the feature size is below
30um, the printed figures have rough edges and their dimensions are
unreliable. I am looking for a company with a better printer (I know that
there are printers with an amazing 10000dpi resolution).

  Does anybody know of or use the services of such print shops?
Specifically, I am looking for linotronic printers with resolutions of
3600dpi or better. However, the printed figures must be reliable (they do
not vary much from run to run and sizes are the same all around the mask).

  The geographical location is not an issue, since we can send them the file
electronically and they can mail back the printed masks to us.

  Thanks,
  Behraad