Multimetrixs LLC

Other

Quartet Medtronics Inc

Adem, LLC

Multimextrixs, LLC

Boris Kesil

Elik Gershenzon

Leonid Velikov

Yuri Vorobyev

David Jonathan Margulis

Yury Nikolenko

Proposed is an overhead transportation system for transporting FOUPs in the environment of semiconductor production. The system includes a pair of rails and a hoist travelling along the rails on two pairs of independently controlled wheels. The wheels are driven from in-wheel drive motors and are provided with lateral guide rollers that prevent the wheels from contact with the side walls of the rails. The FOUP gripper mechanism for grasping FOUPs is suspended from the hoist on multifunctional electrically conductive straps, which raise a gripper-grasped FOUP by pulling it up together with the lower pulleys of the strap-guiding unit. The gripper mechanism is attached to a swinging member rotationally installed on a slider, which is laterally moveable from the hoist toward a work station. The in-wheel motors receive power from batteries on the hoist. Other drives are fed from an external source switched in to the hoist on work stations.

Overhead transportation system for transporting objects between multiple work stations

An industrial wedge-type gripper mechanism for gripping or releasing objects that has a housing with a piston of a pneumatic cylinder moveable in the housing in longitudinal direction of the housing and a plurality of gripper jaw holders that slide in the housing in a radial or transverse direction and that support the gripper jaws. The gripper jaw holders have inclined slots, and the piston of the pneumatic cylinder is associated with a member that supports rolling bearings rolling and sliding in the inclined slots so that with reciprocations of the piston the rolling bearings exert a camming or wedging action on the walls of the inclined slots and thus cause the gripper jaw holders and thus the gripper jaws to perform gripping or releasing action on the objects.

Industrial wedge-type gripper mechanism

Proposed is a universal gripping and suction chuck for use as an interchangeable end effector of a robot arm of a robotic station capable of picking up, transporting, and handling objects having colors and outlines. The chuck housing contains elements of a vacuum system for holding the object by vacuum suction force, a vortex system for holding the objects in a non-contact manner in a state of levitation, and a mechanical edge gripper. The vacuum system, the vortex system, and the mechanical edge gripper can be selectively activated by commands from the central processing system that receives a signal recognition signal, object presence/absence signal and/or object approaching signal from respective sensors and depending on the type of the object recognized by the respective sensor. As a result, the chuck can pick up and handle such different objects as solid semiconductor wafer, paper or fabric interleaves, or small-diameter rings.

Universal gripping and suction chuck

Proposed is a method of teaching an industrial robotic station with elimination of errors of assembling and installation as well as errors accumulated during operation for a predetermined operation time or a number of operation cycles. The method consists of providing a robotic station with a coordinate system fixed relative to the frame and all other stationary components including at least two reference objects, one of which is a tactile sensor and another is a hard body such as a hard spherical ball. A position of the center of the hard precision in the fixed coordinate system of the robotic station is determined via contact with a changeable tactile sensor attached to the coupling of the robot arm and is assumed as center of coordinates of an operative coordinate system which is then used for moving the robot arm to working positions memorized in a CPU and in accordance with a memorized sequence.

Method of teaching robotic station for processing objects

Devices and methods of the invention can be used in many industries, including, but not limited to, utilities, agriculture, food, textile, pharmaceutical, photovoltaic and semiconductor, medical devices, chemical and petro-chemical, material science, and defense, where monitoring and/or analysis of various properties of materials are desired. Sensors and methods of using same are provided for measuring at least one impedance of an object under test (or a tested object) at a predetermined frequency and/or a predetermined frequency range, particularly where resonance conditions are provided for such measurement.

Impedance sensing systems and methods for use in measuring constituents in solid and fluid objects

A precision soft-touch gripping mechanism has a mounting plate attached to a robot arm. The plate supports a stepper motor. The output shaft of the stepper motor is connected through a spring to an elongated finger that slides in a central longitudinal slot of the plate and supports a first wafer gripping post, while on the end opposite to the first wafer gripping post the mounting plate pivotally supports two L-shaped fingers with a second and third wafer gripping posts on their respective ends. The mounting plate in combination with the first sliding finger and two pivotal fingers forms the end effector of the robot arm which is thin enough for insertion into a wafer-holding slot of a wafer cassette. The end effector is equipped with a mapping sensor for detecting the presence or absence of the preceding wafer, wafer position sensors for determining positions of the wafer with respect to the end effector, and force sensors for controlling the wafer gripping force. Several embodiments relate to different arrangements of gripping rollers and mechanisms for control of the gripping force and speed of gripping required for gripping the wafer with a soft and reliable touch.

Precision soft-touch gripping mechanism for flat objects

An apparatus for measuring thickness in super-thin films consists of a special resonator unit in the form of an open-bottom cylinder which is connected to a microwave swept frequency microwave source via a decoupler and a matching unit installed in a waveguide that connects the resonator unit with the microwave source. The apparatus operates on the principle that thin metal film F, the thickness of which is to be measured, does not contact the end face of the open bottom of the cylindrical resonator sensor unit and functions as a bottom of the cylindrical body. The design of the resonator excludes generation of modes other than the resonance mode and provides the highest possible Q-factor. As the conductivity directly related to the film thickness, it is understood that measurement of the film thickness is reduced to measurement of the resonance peak amplitudes. This means that superhigh accuracy inherent in measurement of the resonance peaks is directly applicable to the measurement of the film thickness or film thickness deviations.

Method and apparatus for precision measurement of film thickness

The mapping sensor system of the invention is intended for use with a mechanical arm of an industrial robot which loads and unloads flat circular objects, such as semiconductor wafers, into and from wafer cassettes on operations of processing the semiconductor wafers in stand-alone or cluster machines used in semiconductor production. The mapping system consists of a light source, a light-receiving element, and a light beam shaper. The light source is installed on the front end of the robot arm and directs the light via the beam shaper to the leading edge of the semiconductor wafer. The beam reflected from the wafer edge is sensed by a light-receiving element, such as a photodiode. The shaper modifies the shape and the cross-section of the beam directed towards the wafer so as to provide reflection from the curvilinear surface of the edge, irrespective of the existence of the notch, most optimum for detection by the photodiodes and without generation of false signals. In one embodiment, the beam shaper contains a special objective with a cylindrical lens. In another embodiment, the beam shaper comprises an anamorphotic objective with an array of microlenses.

Mapping sensor system for detecting positions of flat objects

The system of the invention for measuring characteristics of thin conductive and non-conductive material, such as bulk material or films, is based on the use of a resonance oscillating circuit that incorporates at least two components selected from the group consisting of an inductive coil and a capacitor, which in combination form a sensor that could be approached close to the surface to be measured. The measurement of the film or material characteristics, such as film resistance (film thickness) or a dielectric constant (film thickness) of a non-conductive material, is based on the principle that the sensor is approached to the measured surface at a distance, at which the inductance and capacitance of the sensor generate in the measured material a virtual coil and an additional capacitance, which strongly depend on the characteristics of the measured material. As the sensor approached towards the surface to be measured, the sensor-material system generates a series of resonances having different values of power. One of these resonances can be defined as the so-called full resonance, which is characterized by the maximum value of the power, and hence provides the most accurate measurement and can be used for precisely determining the measurement distance. By comparing the results of measurements with those known from measuring the precalibrated films or materials under the same conditions, it becomes possible to determine the target characteristics of the films or materials.

System and method for measuring characteristics of materials with the use of a composite sensor

An apparatus of the invention is intended for multiple identical continuous records of characteristics on the surface of an object, e.g., a semiconductor wafer, after selected stages of manufacture and treatment. The apparatus is provided with a rotary table for rotation of the wafer with a mechanism for installing the wafer in a predetermined initial position for starting measurements from the same point after each selected stage of manufacture or treatment. The measurements are synchronized for all sequential manufacturing stages of the wafer and are carried out with the use of a resonance sensor based on the principles of resonance sensor technology. The recorded information is stored on a memory device, and if the final product has a defect or deviations, the stored information can be easily retrieved for revealing the time, place on the product, and the source of the defect. The same records can also be used for correlation between the defects or deviations and the failure of the final product on quality control and even during exploitation of the chip in a semiconductor device.

Apparatus and method for multiple identical continuous records of characteristics on the surface of an object after selected stages of manufacture and treatment

The invention describes an apparatus for preventing gripping of objects having wrong dimensions or orientation. The apparatus comprises a part handler, e.g., a holder for parts to be treated in a chemical reactor, where the parts has to be transferred from a working position to a temporary storage. The holder may have different shapes, e.g., rectangular, elliptical, or circular, and is provided with positioning openings or recesses for engagement with pins or semispherical elements on the engaging surface of the part handler. The apparatus is provided with at least two through beam optical sensor units with adjustable divergence of the light beams emitted from the light emitting to the light-receiving element. The sensor units are located near the edge area of the holder. Position of the holder for aligning with the part handler is determined by combined interaction of the holder edge with the sensor units so that, depending on overlapping of one or two sensors and on the position of the overlapped zone, the apparatus determines whether or not the holder is aligned with the part handler or the gripping operation has to be rejected. In another embodiment the apparatus is equipped with three optical sensors, which simplify the control operation.

Method and apparatus for preventing transfer of an object having wrong dimensions or orientation

The invention relates to an apparatus and method for measuring thickness and deviations from the thickness of very thin conductive coatings on various non-conductive substrates, or of very thin non-conductive coatings on conductive substrates. The apparatus consists of an inductive coil having specific parameters, an external AC generator operating on frequencies, e.g., from 50 MHz to 2.5 GHz, preferably from 100 MHz to 200 MHz, and a measuring instrument, such as an oscilloscope, voltmeter, etc. for measuring output of the sensor. The coil has miniature dimensions. The invention is based on the principle that inductive coil of the sensor, active resistance of the coil winding, inherent capacitance of the inductive coil (or a separate capacitor built into the sensor's circuit), and the aforementioned AC generator form a parallel oscillating circuit. The apparatus operates on very high resonance frequencies, preferably within the range of 100 to 200 MHz, at which a capacitive coupling is established between the coil of the oscillating circuit and the thin films being measured. By measuring the parameters of the resonance oscillating circuit, it becomes possible to measure film thickness below 500 Angstroms.

Method and apparatus for measuring thickness of thin films with improved accuracy

A universal electromagnetic resonance system is aimed at detecting and measuring local non-uniformities in objects made from conductive or non-conductive materials. The system comprises a composite measuring unit composed of two identical and symmetrically arranged individual oscillation circuits with measurement elements in the form of identical and symmetrically arranged inductive coils or capacitor chips. The unit is connected to an impedance analyzer for supplying RF current and for measuring the voltage signal in the oscillation circuit. Since all the elements of individual oscillation circuits are identical, in the case of non-uniformity of the object on the scanned area, the parameters of the resonance will hanged. This change will violate the symmetry in the operation of the individual oscillation circuits. The variation in measured signal can be calibrated in terms of the target parameter or characteristic of the object.

Universal electromagnetic resonance system for detecting and measuring local non-uniformities in metal and non-metal objects

The invention relates to an apparatus for measuring thickness and deviations from the thickness of thin conductive coatings on various substrates, e.g., metal coating films in semiconductor wafer or hard drive disks. The thickness films may be as small as fractions of microns. The apparatus consists of an inductive sensor and a proximity sensor, which are rigidly interconnected though a piezo-actuator used for displacements of the inductive sensor with respect to the surface of the object being measured. Based on the results of the operation of the proximity sensor, the inductive sensor is maintained at a constant distance from the controlled surface. Variations in the thickness of the coating film and in the distance between the inductive sensor and the coating film change the current in the inductive coil of the sensor. The inductive sensor is calibrated so that, for a predetermined object with a predetermined metal coating and thickness of the coating, variations in the amplitude of the inductive sensor current reflect fluctuations in the thickness of the coating. The distinguishing feature of the invention resides in the actuating mechanism of microdisplacements and in the measurement and control units that realize interconnection between the proximity sensor and the inductive sensor via the actuating mechanism. The actuating mechanism is a piezo actuator. Measurement of the film thickness in the submicron range becomes possible due to highly accurate dynamic stabilization of the aforementioned distance between the inductive sensor and the object. According to one embodiment, the distance is controlled optically with the use of a miniature interferometer, which is rigidly connected to the inductive sensor. According to another embodiment, the distance is controlled with the use of a capacitance sensor, which is also rigidly connected to the inductive sensor.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Boris Kesil