1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pressing device and a pressing method, and, more particularly, to a pressing device for pressing a ceramic stacked layer structure including ceramic green sheets placed upon each other, and to a method of pressing a ceramic stacked layer structure using the pressing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical example of a laminated ceramic electronic part is a monolithic ceramic capacitor. In a typical structure of the monolithic ceramic capacitor, external electrodes are disposed on ceramic elements. The ceramic elements are made from ceramic dielectric material, and have internal electrodes formed thereon. These internal electrodes are electrically connected to the external electrodes.
Monolithic ceramic capacitors are ordinarily produced in the following way. Ceramic green sheets, with internal electrode patterns formed thereon, are placed in a stacked layer structure and pressed together. The resulting pressed structure is then cut at predetermined locations to form individual ceramic elements. Afterwards, external electrodes are disposed on each of the individual ceramic elements.
Ordinarily, the ceramic stacked layer structure consisting of ceramic green sheets placed upon each other is pressed in order to squeeze the ceramic green sheets together, as shown in FIG. 5. The ceramic stacked layer structure 51 is set in a die body 52 and a top die 53, and is then pressed or squeezed between the die body 52 and the top die 53.
In order to press the stacked layer structure 51 and thereby squeeze the ceramic green sheets together, it is necessary to exert a high pressure on the stacked layer structure 51. This means that the die body 52 must be able to withstand high pressures. Therefore, the die body 52 is ordinarily large and heavy. However, a large and heavy die body 52 cannot be easily handled in the pressing operation. As a result, the pressing operation cannot be easily performed.
Since the die body 52 is heavy, a light-weight container, or jig, must be separately provided for transporting the stacked layer structure 51 to a location where the pressing operation is performed. This means that an additional step must be performed to transfer the ceramic stacked layer structure from the separately provided container to the die body 52 of the pressing device. This transfer is troublesome to perform, and can also cause the ceramic green sheets of the ceramic structure to become misaligned, thereby degrading desirable properties of the monolithic ceramic capacitor.