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Machining Company Specializes in Small, Critical Parts for Electronics Industry

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Machining close-tolerance electronics parts out of exotic materials is a long-established specialty of Wolf's Precision Works, Inc. (WPM), a precision machine shop that's been in business since 1979. Parts machined by the Silicon Valley company for the telecommunications and semiconductor equipment industries include receivers, multiplexers, transmitter housings, and the metal carriers that semiconductor chips are mounted to.

"We specialize in machining small, delicate pieces of work with tight tolerances, using very exotic metals--parts that most people have no idea how to machine," says Wolf's Precision Works General Manager Bill Pursell. "We can handle parts from one piece to 100,000 pieces, and we do prototype work as well."

Wolf's Precision Works (www.wpw-inc.com) also handles work for the aerospace, defense, green technology, medical, and automotive industries. "For the past 14 years, we've made a lot of the housings for microwave and cell phone communications components," continues Pursell. "These are small housings that hold the electrical components inside the large enclosures; they are almost always nickel and gold-plated. You'll see IC chips bonded, either by soldering or gluing, into these little housings, which are then hermetically sealed. High RF energy will be going in and out of these housings."

The small electronic housings -- about 2 inches long, 1/4-inch thick, and 3/4-inch wide -- are usually manufactured out of copper-tungsten, Kovar®, molybdenum, Invar®36, or Carpenter®49 (a nickel-iron alloy)--very hard, exotic materials that quickly wear down machining bits. The company also creates parts for the military that are used in extreme environments and must withstand extreme temperature changes.