The demand and application of micron and sub-micron manufacturing requirements is growing, which offers unique challenges and immense opportunities to a wide group of tool shops and production parts manufacturers in the United States. The term micromachining broadly refers to part details and holes smaller than the human hair that are measured only in microns-or one thousandth of a millimeter.
This stress on micromachining has seized the imagination of nearly every industrial segment.
Technical and application engineers say that such industries as biomedical, medical appliance, personal electronics, fluid transfer, optical comparators, optics and fiber optics, RF electronics, communications, military, aerospace products, and the automotive world are centered on micromanufacturing. They all see the future in new and exciting consumer and industrial products coming daily.

These smaller, lighter parts with higher levels of functionality have set new requirements on original equipment manufacturers to reevaluate the design and concepts of different machining systems and technologies. You may have already got a number of approaching uses in micromachined parts in your computer, heart monitor or pacemaker, automobile, cell phone, and many more applications.

The capacity to produce parts with such high accuracy and surface quality on a variety of newer materials, including metal alloys and ceramic, is in very high demand. Unique new machines can make holes as tiny as 0.00078 inches in diameter, 100 times smaller than many recent machining operations.

The application of micromanufacturing represents a "business reality" to machine makers and providers. Learning to use these high-tech designs, concepts and machine tools will permit U.S. manufacturers to offer a larger understanding and service capability to combat foreign manufacturing competition.

Optical inspection is a form of non-contact inspection in quality control. Optical inspection plays an important role in the quality process in manufacturing industry. It can be performed off-line, where the part is removed from the manufacturing process and brought to the inspection station; on-line, where the part is inspected without removing it from the manufacturing process; or near-line, where the part is inspected near the manufacturing process so it can be returned to the manufacturing process as quickly as possible. It can range from quick, subjective inspection by a person to automated inspection by a machine.

The human eye is the simplest detector that processes images. Human eye inspection is often referred to as visual inspection. Optical inspection is an enhanced version of visual inspection. It involves use of magnifying lenses to improve and enhance the image of inspected object.

There are many optical inspection devices. The most basic optical inspection device is the single lens magnifier. It is typically a large lens mounted on an arm that attaches to a workbench. Simple magnifiers can enhance inspected part 3 to 5 times and are best suited to identify small flaws. More advanced device is an optical comparator. Optical comparator magnifies and image and projects it on a glass or plastic screen. Then it is read by an operator and compared against preset chart. Optical comparators can usually magnify image up to 500X.

In order to achieve larger magnification steps optical microscope is used. It combines multi element and magnifying eyepiece to magnify to image of inspected part up to 800X. However, high magnification limits the field of view and requires that inspected part be close to the lens. That somehow limits the use of optical microscope in industrial manufacturing.

Another type of optical inspection device is the video measuring system. Its optical design evolved from the optical comparator. Instead of the filling the viewing screen with magnified image, the image strikes a camera detector. The camera in a video measuring system replaces the viewing screen of the optical comparator and eyepiece of a microscope. A video system provides high-magnification optical inspection with a very important difference - video measuring systems deal with more than a single field of view at a time.