Micro-channel generation on copper-foil by EMM process

Electrochemical micromachining (EMM) appears to be a very promising micromachining technique in nearby future. Use of copper as a conductive material in microchips needs generation of complex profiles in copper foil. EMM can be utilised for generating micro-profiles in copper foils, which urgently needs a lot of investigation. For fulfilling various research objectives and needs of EMM, the present research highlights the development of EMM system setup and feasibility study of machining micro-channels. Experimental investigation on the developed EMM setup considering the influence of process parameters on micromachining criterion have been performed based on Taguchi method of robust design. From the results, optimal parametric settings for the responses are electrolyte concentration of 50 g/l, applied voltage of 7 V, frequency of 30 kHz, duty factor of 0.15 and tool feed rate of 312.5 mm/s. Second order regression equations have also been developed to search out the best parametric combination for achieving different micromachining characteristics.