The use of Multimodal PDC, with its mix of grit sizes (seen on the right, magnified 700 times) produces a much denser diamond. This dramatically improves our cutters, relative wear life. Non-planar Interfaces improved both the relative toughness and the relative wear life of the cutters. Toughness improved as a result of reduce stresses, wear life as a result of the thicker diamond table at the cutting edge.

In the early 1990s, PDC cutters produced with large grit sizes offered higher relative toughness but low relative wear resistance. Higher wear resistance could be achieved by the use of smaller grit sizes, at the expense of lower relative toughness. Hence the cutters at that time all lay on the red line above.

ReedHycalog, with our in-house design and R&D team, started to work on a project to produce a cutter that moved off this line in to the Top Right Corner (TRC). The result was the introduction of Multimodal PDC and Non-Planer Interfaces in the mid 1990s and followed by a major breakthrough in rock cutting technology, TReX.
TReX means Top Right eXeptional.