Tungsten carbide is commonly known as tungsten steel; for brevity, it is often simply called “carbide” (in fact, “carbide” is a collective name of all carbonized materials).

Moreover, besides carbon and wolfram, materials like cobalt and other types of alloy are added to increase mechanical functions. As the hardness of tungsten steel is high, it is often considered a material for chopping and slicing tools; high-hardness arms or cores of armor-piercing shots, and sports equipment components requiring high hardness, or the balls for ball point pens.

Tungsten steel is usually made via sintering the powder. Take powdered wolfram and black carbon, as well as cobalt metal powder as the binder, and another alloy powder to mix. After that, press the mixture with high pressure and sinter it in a high-temperature environment. The hardness of tungsten carbide is extremely high; its Mohs Scale of hardness is 8.5 to 9, and its melting temperature is 2870°C.

Products: Thimbles

Theseare used in wafer sorters; the methodis to lift the dies (chips) so that the nozzle arm above candraw them into the categorizing area.

Products: Probes

  Theseare used in wafer probe tests and automatic/semi-automatic/manual control models to test and light the dies upin order to see if the voltage/current/brightness of the dies meet certain pecifications.