Z3DLAB Signs Joint Venture with Semiconductor Expert HS HI-TECH to Make Z3DFAB Digital AM Production Center

French company Z3DLAB, formed in 2014 and specializing in metal additive manufacturing by SLM, has signed a joint venture with Korean semiconductor expert HS HI-TECH. It’s called Z3DFAB, a new digital additive manufacturing production center in South Korea. This center will combine the knowledge and expertise of both Z3DLAB and HS HI-TECH, blending a rigorous process and cleaning at the nano scale with additive manufacturing, and will be on track to keep all their customers satisfied. These customers are in a wide range of fields, from aerospace to automotive, nuclear to medical. This is not Z3DLAB’s first major 3D printing partnership with a Korean company – earlier this summer, they teamed up with InssTek, in order to produce hard-core strength aeronautics components.

Over the past decade, the revolutionary world of additive manufacturing, clearly an industry game changer, has continued to grow and radically transform the traditional methods of manufacturing. So partnerships like Z3DFAB are becoming pretty par for the course.

Mr. Kim Seong Soo, the CEO of HS HI-TECH, said, “The Additive Manufacturing and Advanced materials is the new paradigm for the 21st century manufacturing, the understanding of all value chain and market structuration is key in making a world class digital manufacturing center.”

HS HI-TECH, established back in 2004, brings a lot to the table in their new partnership with Z3DLAB. They have considerable experience in the manufacturing of parts and modules for semiconductor equipment, with a focus on cleaning precision nozzles and spin chucks for semiconductors. The 10,000 square meter Z3DFAB center will be based in the same area as HS HI-TECH is, Dongtan-Myeon, in the Gyeonggi Province of South Korea, over 300 miles from the North Korean border. The new $2.5 million digital manufacturing center will be something of a one-stop shop for services in polymers and metal additive manufacturing to its wide variety of customers.

Z3DLAB’s main area of expertise is in additive manufacturing and advanced material. 3D printing using metal materials overcomes the issues of assembly and complexity that are such a large part of conventional manufacturing methods. It can produce parts in more complex shapes (hollow, curved, honeycomb) than traditional manufacturing, without the use of regular tools. You may remember when they created their revolutionary, patented ZTi-Powder for 3D printing last year, a new metal composite material combining titanium and zirconia, and said to be the hardest material for selective laser melting (SLM) in the world. Their engineering team discovered many issues with titanium, including a tendency to erode, so after extensive research, decided to combine it with zirconia, a ceramic that is 50% harder than titanium. The malleability of titanium and the hardness of zirconia made the perfect pair.

By adding Z3DLab’s expertise in additive manufacturing with the quality standards and high precision semi-conductors of HS HI-TECH, the joint venture of Z3DFAB will really be able to offer its customers top-notch industry solutions. With its $10 million investment over two years, it is aiming to be the best additive manufacturing center in its class, as well as setting a world standard for the cleaning and post-processing of industrial parts.

Mr. Djemai Madjid, CEO of Z3DLAB, said, “Combining semiconductors Nano scale environment, the state of art in cleaning procedure and the strict quality control is what we couldn’t dream better for creating the best digital manufacturing of the 21st century.”

With its specific cleaning process and ISO 13485 certification, Z3DFAB will be ready to hit the ground running and take on medical manufacturing by the first semester of 2017. They plan on reaching all top additive manufacturing certifications by the end of 2017. To learn more about Z3DFAB, make sure to watch the video below:

Discuss in the Z3DFAB forum at 3DPB.com.