Patent ID: 8435437

Claim:
A method of fabricating a plurality of stents, comprising: providing a plurality of polymer tubing sections that are each formed separately by the same type of processing steps for use in forming stents of the same design, wherein each of the tubing sections are made of the same polymer and have the same wall thickness, wherein the quality and dimensions of stents obtained from the laser machining of the different tubing sections are sensitive to the laser power such that laser machining the different tubing sections with the same power yields stents with different quality and strut widths, wherein the sensitivity is due to variations in morphology between the different tubing sections arising from slight differences in conditions of the processing steps; determining for each tubing section from a length of each tubing section an average laser power level for use in forming stents from each of the tubing sections with laser machining; and laser machining stent patterns into the tubing sections to form a plurality of stents using the laser power levels determined for each tubing section, wherein the stent patterns comprise a plurality of struts and the average laser power determined for each tubing section is selected to compensate for the sensitivity to the variations through adjustment of the power for the different tubing sections to obtain repeatable strut widths which are the same in each of the stent patterns formed from the different tubing sections.