New aspects of simulation in hot-embossing

Hot embossing is especially well suited for manufacturing small and medium volume series. However a wider diffusion of this process is currently seriously hampered by the lack of adequate simulation tools for process optimization and part design. This lack of simulation tools is becoming critical as the dimensions of the microstructures continuously shrink from micron and sub-micron towards nano-scales and as productivity requirements dictate the enlargement of formats to process larger numbers of devices in parallel. Having no macroscopic equivalent the micro hot embossing process cannot be described by simple down scaling of existing software tools like in injection molding. In this paper a first access is described how numerical simulation also can be applied to the hot embossing process.