Furukawa Electric Starts Commercial Operation of Nikko’s New Facilities

Furukawa Electric decided to start commercial operation of a rolling mill and a continuous annealing furnace for copper alloy fabricated products in April 2010, those which were currently introduced in Nikko works, Tochigi, Japan. The firm expects these new facilities contribute to better quality and shorter lead time of copper alloy products.

Nikko works introduced a 12-high rolling mill which is suitable to manufacture thin and highly strong copper alloy products. This rolling mill realizes automatic control of thickness and shape of copper alloy sheets at the extremely precise level.

A continuous annealing furnace is the first furnace that can endure a temperature as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius. High-strength copper alloy products need a heating process at the very high temperature. By the conventional process, thin copper alloy sheets cannot keep required shapes under the high temperature. Furukawa Electric’s original technology to control sheet shapes enables production of copper alloy products with favorable bending workability.

Furukawa Electric plans to produce high functional copper alloy strips, such as corson series copper alloy, with these new facilities to meet the diverse demand from connector makers. At the same time, the firm is able to separate productive lines of lead frame materials and connector pin materials by utilization of total 3 rolling mills in Nikko works. Furukawa Electric expects quality improvement and lead time reduction by separation of productive lines.