short-stroke wafer stage.
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Aside from its contents, the housing of advanced semiconductor production machines is also important. We designed a short-stroke wafer stage with a complex-shaped magnetic shield. We also developed a sophisticated manufacturing process for this purpose.
short-stroke, broad scope.
We developed a short-stroke wafer stage for a new machine that illuminates wafers in a high vacuum. The stage was subject to strict electromagnetic requirements. We also came up with a special metrology solution: a metro-frame that makes it possible to measure position with feedback to the wafer positioning system. We had full responsibility for the short-stroke wafer stage, including the magnetic shield. Important points of focus included assembly and service-friendly cabling and minimal heat dissipation from electric motors.
manufacture and qualification.
For the magnetic shield, we designed a complex shaped cylinder with extremely tight tolerance as the motor housing. Together with manufacturing partners we developed a sophisticated manufacturing process for sheets made of a suitable nickel-iron alloy; laser cutting, laser welding and annealing to remove all mechanical tension. We took care of the serial production, plus qualification, of the complete short-stroke wafer stage, including the special magnetically separated housing.
“we were able to improve the performance of the wafer stage each time.”
In this project we combined design optimization with cost control. For each component we weighed off technical specifications against cost. The cleanliness of the components was a significant factor due to the need for the system to operate in a vacuum. The integration of our module into the customer’s machine also was a point of focus.