Plastic without limits
Plastic is durable, affordable, easy and effortless to design, mould and mass manufacture – for many reasons a perfect and most commonly used material for mobile handsets. Thanks to its versatile nature, plastic is a valid answer also to tightening market requests regarding look&feel, ecology and quality.
LITEONMOBILE’s roots are in Perlos, Finnish plastic company originating from the 1950s. Even though the material portfolio has widened especially during the past few years, Perlos’ old plastic expertise and knowhow remains strong. Based on the solid experience from the whole lifecycle: design, material selection, tooling and injection molding, LITEONMOBILE maintains constant focus also on new material research, trend follow-up and technology solutions. Plastics Business Creation Unit is driving the development in close customer contact.
Greenish, green and greener
Ecological values might not be the first thing to come to mind when thinking about plastics, but the industry has worked actively both to enable recycling of plastic components and using recycled raw materials. Also the first examples of components made of plant-derived, carbon-neutral plastics have been introduced. Most modern ecological plastics meet the heat, wear and shock resistance demands set by mobile handset clients. LITEONMOBILE is actively exploring the supply base to find the best solutions to complement the material offering.
Almost like the real thing
Plastic is also often associated with words like artificial, synthetic and cheap. They might apply to traditional conception of the material but with today’s decoration and technology solutions it is hard to even distinguish plastic from other materials. Plastic does an excellent job imitating for instance metal, leather and ceramics. LITEONMOBILE has a variety of technological solutions ready to take into programs: NCVM for metallic look in different colors, Soft Touch IML or painting to create very natural, pleasant touch and Ceramic IML or painting to give authentic stoneware feel.
More in one
IML (In-Mould Labelling) technology has also a variety of other interesting applications to offer: freedom with colors, print, touch and surface design is almost unlimited and the process itself is quick and lean. IML also enables an interesting integration solution, antenna molded in the cover of the device. LITEOMOBILE specialists are confident that this is just a beginning in integrating the components and cutting down the amount of components in devices. In addition to antennas, the industry has already seen both decorational and functional light applications integrated in the covers. Instead of being just passive, with future technologies plastic gets more features and intelligence integrated with the material.
Still improving
To be able to provide stronger and more rigid structures, LITEONMOBILE has materials complemented with fibers or ready solutions to integrate metal into plastic. To provide cleaner and more resistant surfaces, there are different coatings: easy-to-clean and anti-fingerprint.
Plastic as such might not answer to all the potential material needs you could imagine, but there are more and more things that you can do with plastic. Something to all the senses: how about plastic that feels cold to touch, or is heavier than most metals. Some composite materials also provide a mild, natural scent.