The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 02, 1988
Filed:
Oct. 07, 1986
Vladimir E Leibovich, San Jose, CA (US);
W Thomas Novak, San Jose, CA (US);
Micronix Corporation, Los Gatos, CA (US);
Abstract
The positioning system, particularly useful for moving a stage mounting a semiconductor wafer for the manufacture of semiconductor devices, provides a lead screw and zero backlash nut for coarse motion of the stage. A thrust member fixedly mounts the nut and the member is flexurally mounted to a housing supporting the stage acting through a piezoelectric motor connection. This action brings the stage in a coarse adjustment mode into the capture range of the piezoelectric motor for fine adjustment by in and out movement of a pusher rod extending from the motor. Flexures allow motion of the thrust member parallel to the lead screw and protects the piezoelectric motor from undesirable side loads. A separate duplicate mechanism is used for each of x-axis and y-axis movements of the housing and stage to bring the stage to a precise position by the respective coarse and fine translationary movements of the lead screw, thrust members and piezoelectric motors.