Thin quartz oscillator with support of leads

Abstract

A thin quartz oscillator element including a substrate of quartz with a plurality of electrodes disposed on a major surface of the substrate and extending outwardly beyond one edge of the substrate. Metallic bodies are disposed on the same surface of the substrate as the electrodes remote from the electrodes. The electrodes thicken in the region that extends beyond the edge of the substrate to a sufficient thickness to be thereby reinforced. Another electrode made as a metallic layer is built-up on the opposite major surface of the quartz substrate. To construct the quartz oscillator, an upper and a lower major surface of a quartz substrate are lapped. The substrate is mounted on a jig, and a metallic layer is deposited on a surface of the substrate and extending from one end thereof. The metallic layer is coated with photo-resist, the photo-resist is exposed to light through a mask, and the photoresist is then developed to remove unexposed photo-resist. Areas of the metallic layer unprotected by photo-resist are etched away to form the electrodes and the metallic body. The substrate is removed from the jig, cleaned of remaining photo-resist, and the surface bearing the electrode and metallic body is covered with a second mask. A gold metal layer is plated onto the metallic bodies and the electrodes to increase their thickness to a predetermined value to reinforce them. A lower electrode is built-up on the lower major surface of the quartz substrate in a similar manner but is not reinforced by the application of a gold layer.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.