Succeeded in Manufacturing the World's Smallest Radial Deep Groove Ball Bearing
We, NSK Micro Precision co., Ltd. (ISC), have succeeded in manufacturing the world's smallest-diameter deep groove ball bearing with an outer diameter of 2 mm and a bore diameter of 0.6 mm. ISC has also established the required technology for mass production of this product. This product has same structure of conventional bearing with cage and meets the standard of ISO class 5 low-noise deep grove ball bearing (AFBMA ABEC5; JIS P5).
Our mass-produced conventional bearings have an outside diameter of 4 mm. Recent demand by our customers in the HDD and IT industries required that we further downscale bearings with an outside diameter of 3.5 mm and 2.9 mm. We have responded well to those customer needs by manufacturing ball bearings with :
(1) Even smaller diameters and thinner widths. (2) Maintaining equivalent or better accuracy and performance of conventional bearings.
We have been responding to our customer needs by customizing the design and manufacturing for each customer's specific needs. Recently we employed a more proactive stance by incorporating and anticipating customer needs by designing and producing the world's smallest miniature ball bearings with ultra-small and ultra-thin dimensions. These developments were achieved by taking advantage of our proprietary miniature bearing manufacturing technology, which outranks ordinary bearing manufacturing technology, such as specialized micro-processing technologies, assembly, and measuring technologies while simultaneously obtaining the cooperation of suppliers.