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The range of Ekra Screen Printers repeatedly offer accuracy of ±10 microns or better. Independent measurements using sophisticated optical microscopy have revealed table repeatability of 7 microns or less. With options such as electromagnet screen frame locking and motor driven snap‐off control, these printers can offer this sort of accuracy, with no adjustments even after removal of the screen.

Drive east from Frankfurt, upstream along the valley of the River Main, and in 25 kilometres or so you will reach Hanau, where once the brothers Grimm lived and collected the folklore which we now know as the famous Tales. Here too, in 1856, Wilhelm Carl Heraeus, a chemist and pharmacist, proprietor of the pharmacy which had carried the family name for many generations, succeeded in producing temperatures approaching 2000°C from an oxy‐hydrogen flame, temperatures sufficiently high to achieve the melting point of platinum and to allow him to melt substantial quantities of this metal for the first time. Hanau was then a centre for the jewellery manufacturing industry (and remains so today) so the smelting of platinum and other precious metals had an immediate commercial relevance.

Screen printing is a traditional low cost technique for production of electronic circuitry. Conventionally, screen printing is capable of no smaller than 200‐250 micron line and space (500 micron pitch) geometry in anything other than low volume production. In recent years, ERA has been developing a novel approach to screen printing which circumvents the problems with a traditional mesh screen and thereby allows dimensions down to 50 micron line and space to be printed consistently. A major European Commission sponsored project ‐ HIDENIMP ‐ has just commenced with the objective of transferring this manufacturing technology to European industry across a broad range of applications. These include microwave devices (where control of edge definition and gap is important), displays (where minimising track width enhances appearance), precision resistors (where the more controlled deposition characteristics of the μ‐Screen can be used and trimming minimised) and environmental sensors.