Hutchinson Technology Inc (HTI), an industry leader in manufacturing precision components, offers thinner stainless steel filter screens with smaller features. The company recently introduced filters on 0.025-mm thick stainless steel, with 0.055-mm diameter holes for volume production. Prototypes are available with even smaller hole sizes. The company has been providing filter screens for over ten years on stainless steel material that typically ranged from 0.04 to 0.25-mm thick.

The stainless steel screens offer enhanced strength and more uniform hole size compared to alternatives, such as wire mesh, because they are photochemically etched from a solid piece of stainless steel. This improves their dimensional stability and reliability over extended periods of time and in demanding environments.

HTI has been able to achieve extremely high density hole patterns through tight process control. For example, one product currently being produced in volume contains a hole density of over 23,000 holes per square cm (178,000 holes per square inch), with 0.055-mm hole diameter. This design provides approximately 55% open area on the screen for this particular design, but hole density and percent open area are readily tailored to customer-specific design needs.