From the very beginning, HEIDENHAIN has set its primary goal as the products that are always leading in production technology, and this goal runs through the whole development history of the company from beginning to end. Mr. Wilhelm Heidenhain, a skilled engineer from Berlin, became interested in precision machinery and became a skilled engineer in one of the most famous scientific instruments and precision calibration factories in Switzerland. In 1889, Mr. Wilhelm HEIDENHAIN established a metal etching company in Berlin, and began to make decorative templates, and later made commercial plaques, as well as the graduation of dial surfaces and scales. Due to continuous innovation in manufacturing technology, Mr. W.HEIDENHAIN's company has gradually become the largest and most famous metal etching company in Europe. In 1923, Mr. Wilhelm's son, Dr.JohannesHeidenhain, entered his father's company to work. In order to make up for his lack of chemical knowledge, he was trained in a linear scaler factory owned by Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn. In 1928, Dr.Johannes Heidenhain had a patent on the reproduction process of sulfur-free metallurgy, so he realized that he could quickly and accurately generate linear scale from the traditional scale division. This also makes it possible to make a series of scale division products processed by optical and mechanical principles. In 1936, the company produced a one-meter linear scale with a linear accuracy of ±15mm, which was a shocking achievement at that time. In 1943, a circular dial of 3 arc seconds was produced for Carl Zeiss Company in Jena. The factory in Berlin was destroyed in World War II. In 1948, Dr.Johannes Heidenhain resumed his career. He set up a company with only seven workers in Traunreut. One of the goals of this young company is to find a better plate-making process. In 195, HEIDENHAIN Company obtained the patent of DIADUR process: a layer of light-resistant material was covered on the glass substrate, and a layer of chromium metal was plated by vapor deposition process. Because of this leading achievement, they can produce an extremely thin but hard scale that can resist chemical corrosion in the process of copying and processing a series of products. This is a prerequisite for manufacturing a wide scale, which may be engraved with hundreds of four digits, and can be used in retail stores to display prices, and later used as an optical position measuring instrument in machine tools. In 1952, the production of optical position measuring instruments began-first, it was read horizontally, then it was equipped with direct digital display, and its scale was as small as .1mm linear scale or 1 arc second angle scale. In 1961, the photoelectric scanning linear grating ruler and angle encoder were developed: in the photoelectric scanning process, the structure on the scale and the scanning reticle were used to adjust the intensity of the light beam and convert it into a level signal. In 1968, the appearance of a two-way counter and a simple step controller began HEIDENHIAN's March into the electronic age. Then they designed digital displays for two-axis or three-axis machine tools, and HEIDENHAIN-METRO length meter for measurement and inspection. In 1976HEIDENHAIN Company began to make digital controllers for machine tools. The original product was linear cutting controller. In 1981, contour controllers for milling machines, drilling machines, boring machines and machining centers were produced. In 1987, a new principle of interferometry was put forward, by which the minimum measuring step can reach 1 nanometer and a large installation tolerance is allowed. In 1993, even for complex machinery, it realized its unshakable commitment-dialogue programming, which made TNC controller become the standard of factory field programming in Europe. In the field of scanning methods for linear and angular encoders, the company's continuous development has also increased the application scope of its products. The first complete program appeared in 1997, which can provide the linear, angular and rotary encoders with the function of transmitting absolute position signals through fast and continuous interfaces. In 1999, there were about 3 million rotary and angular encoders, 2.5 million linear grating rulers, 36, digital displays and 13, TNC controllers in this field. In 21HEIDENHAIN Company had more than 2,2 workers in its main factory in Traunreut, and another 45 employees provided technical support in all major industrial countries and service points around the world.