The Zapp Group, which will celebrate its 325th anniversary in 2026 and has launched a major new investment project with the construction of a 12,000 m² production hall for precision foil at its Unna site, in Germany.
The company has come a long way in the past few centuries. Having started in the Leppe Valley of Germany as a small forging shop, Zapp is now a leading metals supplier and one of only a few suppliers in the world that can produce ultra-thin foil from stainless steel, cobalt nickel or titanium alloys. This major investment will further expand its dimensional spectrum down to thicknesses of up to 0.015 mm and widths of up to 650 mm.
As well as targeting products for the clean energy sector, such as foils for fuel cells and substrates for superconductors, a major application for such ultra-thin foil is for Fine Metal Mask (FMM) manufacture, for the production of OLED displays. Zapp has already established itself as one of the leading suppliers in this market, having developed its Zapp SuperClean Invar 36 foil with a key supply partner several years ago.
The product is however constantly being improved and Zapp has already invested significant sums into various testing and measuring devices to characterize its foil products. The latest addition being a new scanning electron microscope to enable various material characterization techniques.
Zapp engineers understand the high demands of FMM products and tailor their foil products to address these. Features such as the accuracy of through-holes, with regards to the contour and taper angles, and the accuracy of the FMM pitch in the x and y directions are key parameters for OLED display makers.
This in turn requires Zapp to produce foil products with the tightest thickness tolerances, optimized shape and near perfect surface condition, as well as with virtually no residual stress.
“The challenge is to produce these product features in combination, as changing one parameter can effect many others” says Head of Material Technology for the Zapp Group, Dr. Araz Barani.
“As the demand for our Zapp SuperClean Invar 36 foil is increasing, we could no longer meet our customers' requirements in the coming years with our current equipment. The construction of a new production facility means that we will be able to improve our foil quality even further, to meet the future quality demands of our customers.”
Indeed, much of the experience and know-how gained by the Zapp engineers over the course of the Zapp SuperClean Invar 36 development has been incorporated within the design of the new production equipment as a number of special features.
As the demand for OLED displays in many consumer goods and IT products is forecast to increase for several years to come, the timing of Zapp’s investment could not be better.
Head of Sales at the Unna site, Dr. Paul Campbell said “To be able to support the market demand, we have decided to invest in a start-of-the-art foil production facility to be able to offer our customers adequate capacity, a wider dimensional spectrum and to further improve the quality of our products.
“We are very happy to have received such strong backing from our supervisory board and shareholders to build upon the hard work that has already been carried out over the past few years. There is of course much more to do, and our customers can rest assured that we will continue to push our boundaries and do all we can to support their growth in the OLED market.”
For further information on Zapp’s range of thin foil products please contact us under precisionstrip@zapp.com or use the following link to find a sales representative in your region.
This was a sponsored post by Zapp