Topics & News Release

Toyo Advanced Technologies Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Minami-ku, Hiroshima; President: Yasuto Tatsuta) has developed and commenced full-scale marketing of a new Inspiring-TiC coating (patent pending) for press dies. TiC (titanium carbide) is already widely used with chemical vapor deposition (CVD), but the new process uses physical vapor deposition (PVD) to form a TiC coating at low temperature. This yields a die with excellent dimensional accuracy and wear resistance.

CVD and PVD are the two most common methods for applying vapor deposited hard coating layers to press dies. CVD provides good coating adhesion and excellent coverage of complex die configurations, but requires high temperatures of around 1000°C. PVD provides somewhat inferior coating adhesion and coverage, but can be applied at relatively low temperatures of 500°C or less, and so enables high dimensional stability because there is less thermal malformation. Although the post-coating service life of a die is better with CVD, the use of PVD for coating press dies is increasing due to its better accuracy.
Of the available coating materials, TiC is very hard, has good lubrication properties, and is often used for high-load applications such as press dies for high-tensile steel.

Features of Inspiring-TiC

1. Quick transfer of finished dies to the assembly line

   PVD's low coating temperature means that, unlike with CVD, no post-coating heat treatment is required.

   Advantages over CVD coating include the following.

   [1]The coating can be applied quickly.

   [2]The precise shape of each die is maintained, so no readjustment is needed.

   [3]The precise shape of press dies products is also high.

   As a result, CVD coating makes it possible to manufacture products with high dimensional stability that can be transferred quickly to the assembly line.

2. Extended service life

   PVD achieves poorer adhesion of TiC to the die base material than CVD, so a high-adhesion layer is applied first. A hard, highly lubricating single surface layer of TiC, just a few micrometers thick, is then applied on top of this. Hardness is a distinguishing feature of the Inspiring-TiC coating process. The TiC used is 1.3 times as hard as P-TiCN (titanium carbide nitride)ﾑone of the hardest materials used for conventional PVD coatingsﾑmaking TiC exceptionally hard wearing. TiC adhesion strength is also 1.3 times that of P-TiCN. Certain manufacturers have already begun durability testing of the new coating on mass-production dies, and good results have been reported.

Toyo Advanced Technologies is active in three business sectors: machine tools, where it is the Japanese market leader in internal grinding machines; surface processing; and automotive components. Toyo was the first company in Japan to introduce CVD coatings in 1968, and today is actively developing new PVD coating products. The development of the new Inspiring-TiC coating is part of this process. In March 2007, an expanded furnace for Inspiring-TiC coating went into operation at Toyo's Nagoya Plant. Toyo will exhibit panels and other samples demonstrating its Inspiring-TiC coating capabilities at Intermold 2007 (booth number 511, East Hall 5), to be held at Tokyo Big Sight from April 25, 2007.

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