International Business Machines Corporation

Lawrence P Remsen

Gordon Taylor Davis

Alfred A Stricker

Robert A Magee

Wolfgang F Mueller

Angelo S Gasparri

Dennis L Saylor

Edward H Faulkner

A system for cleaning material from a surface of an object, such as an MLC mask, having movable support member having extended along its length a line of liquid dispensing nozzles and a line of gas dispensing ports for respectively cleaning and drying the surface. The liquid dispensing nozzles and said gas dispensing ports are arranged to respectively provide a continuous line of liquid spray and a continuous line of gas at an angle with respect to the surface so as to form a wedge therewith in the direction of motion of the movable support member. The nozzles and ports are preferably arranged on both sides of the object to simultaneously clean both sides. The support member is moved vertically with respect to the surface by an air cylinder. The vertical movement of the respective lines of nozzles and ports so that said liquid dispensing nozzles act to provide said continuous line of liquid spray to remove said material from said surface when said line of spray is moved vertically across said surface and said gas dispensing ports subsequently act to provide said continuous line of gas to remove the liquid from the surface when the line of gas is moved vertically across the surface. The material and liquid are deposited below the surface for collection and removal.

In-line mask cleaning system

Vertically displaceable green sheet support fixtures are borne by respective horizontally movable carriages traveling on common rails between respective dual loading stations and a common unloading station, through separate intermediate screening stations, with the carriages movable in opposite directions and out of phase stationwise. The carriages have fixedly coupled thereto, horizontally movable trailers which bear trays of stacked green sheets for selective transfer of the uppermost green sheet to a loading head at the loading station while the carriage borne fixture itself is at a screening station for paste screening of a prior transferred green sheet. Masks employed in screen printing at the screening station are removed from the screening station console and placed in a cleaning chamber for solvent removal of residual screening paste and are air dried prior to return to the screening station console. During cleaning of a dirty mask, a second clean mask is automatically presented at the station to eliminate throughput-loss. The fixture is vertically displaceable on the carriage and its height incrementally varied depending upon green sheet thickness variation. Accelerated vertical separation of the carriage borne green sheet from the mask is effected subsequent to initial slow incremental separation therebetween.

Automatic multilayer ceramic (MLC) screening machine

A horizontally movable slide bears a two section, continuously extending horizontally inclined, steep and shallow sloped cam slot controlling the vertical rise and fall of a cam follower driven support fixture for supporting a ceramic green sheet in underlying contact with a stencil mask in an automatic MLC screening machine. An apertured positioning flag moves horizontally with the slide and past a vertical height digital position encoder assembly and a mask separate encoder assembly. The positioning encoder assembly provides an electrical signal for controlling an actuator mechanism causing slide movement, indicative of the desired final positioning height of the green sheet relative to the mask when the fixture is moving towards the mask. When the actuator mechanism drives the slide in the opposite direction, to lower the green sheet from the mask, the mask separate encoder assembly produces a signal, in response to common positioning flag movement in the opposite direction with the slide to effect a change in speed of the actuator mechanism. This provides slow initial separation of the green sheet from the mask and final removal of the fixture from screening height, at a much more rapid rate.

Green sheet support fixture speed and position control system for a

Growing community of inventors

Stanfordville, NY, United States of America

Lawrence P Remsen