Hitachi Cable Develops Ultra Fine Coaxial Cable

Hitachi Cable announced on Monday the firm succeeded to develop production technology of ultra fine coaxial cable with conductor ultra fine copper alloy wire, which the firm developed to improve conductivity and strength. The firm succeeded to produce fine wire with 13 micrometers diameter, which is around 20% thinner than traditional copper-tin alloy wire, by using newly developed copper-silver alloy and improving wire drawing process. The coaxial cable has 160 micrometers of diameter, which is around 25% thinner than traditional cable, due to the 39 micrometers of diameters of inner conductor, which is strand of 7 wires and around 20% thinner than traditional conductor. The firm tries to apply the cable as medical probe cable expanding the application to cell phone and laptop computer. Traditional copper-tin alloy has higher strength than pure copper wire but the alloy wire can be reduced to 16 micrometers of diameter. The copper-silver alloy wire has 950 mega pascal of strength and 86% of conductivity along international annealed copper standard, which are 5.5% and 14.7% better than copper-tin alloy respectively. World market of ultra fine coaxial cable is expected to increase by 50% in 2008 from estimated 40 billion yen in 2006. With the new products, Hitachi Cable tries to increase the sales of ultra fine cable to around 10 billion yen in fiscal 2008 ending March 2009 from estimated 4 billion yen in fiscal 2006.Ultra fine coaxial cable is used for inner wiring of laptop and cell phone and probe cable of ultrasonic diagnostic equipment. The users require finer cable to downsize and improve the performance of the equipments. Cable makers try to reduce the diameter of conductor and the thick of insulating materials. The makers have to improve the conductivity and strength of conductor when thinner conductor has higher electrical resistance and the conductor should have strength with tough conditions including repeated bending and wresting.