Liga Plus allows for a completely new component design

In 1998, the company Mimotec launched the manufacturing of components with UV-LIGA technology. A truly innovative additive electroforming technology that allows the realization of geometries unattainable by the usual processes, ideal for miniaturization and micro-structuring of component surfaces. Twenty-five years later, Mimotec goes even further with the LIGA Plus.

“The UV-LIGA process has quickly become a very useful alternative for watch brands that have been seduced by the new technological performances offered by this innovation,” explains Alain Hess, Mimotec’s General Manager. “LIGA has been adopted by manufacturers because it is inexpensive, quickly operational, ideal for demanding prototyping and mass production with a level of micrometric precision and surface quality never before achieved.”

Everyone knows that additive manufacturing allows an infinite variety of shapes. In this very promising world, LIGA is an original additive technology that combines photolithography and material growth in a galvanic bath. It is applicable to a wide range of components, including gears, springs, cams and complex micro parts for the watch industry.

More efficient less expensive

In 2023, this micro-fabrication of the future takes on a new dimension with the evolution of LIGA Plus. Mimotec takes advantage of the visibility of the EPHJ show to present a preview of the evolution that pushes the limits of the UV-LIGA technology with the possibility to produce completely finished components with machining on the galvano side, i.e. on the side opposite to the substrate. These new possibilities offered by the LIGA Plus on the machining operations on the upper side of the wafer can be declined in various forms: beveling, core, screw head, obvious-pocketing.

The key competitive advantage of LIGA Plus is that customers can now obtain a wider range of fully completed components, simplifying their supply chain and therefore reducing costs by eliminating the usual internal rework.

Visit us at booth G/H35 at Palexpo in Geneva from June 6 to 9, 2023, to discover this amazing innovation and the detailed range of its application fields.