Developments in microelectronics, micromechanics and microelectromechanical systems require significant improvements in manufacturing tools for mass productions. Especially the assembling tools have to become feaster and more precise. Many assembly devices use XY stages driven by DC servomotors with ball screws or parallel structures; others use linear drives with traditional ball bearings. Only a few devices use linear drives together with air bearings, but always together with an angular guide for X and Y direction. The novel approach present in this paper is based on linear drives together with a planar air bearing. In contrast to other stages, it does not need any angular guide. This reduces the moved mass and leads to higher accelerations. It consists of an arrangement of four identical moving-coils attached to a slide, which is suspended by a planar air bearing. This new configuration allows a workspace of 60 X 60 mm² and an acceleration exceeding 10 g¹ with a resolution better than 100 nm. This paper gives an overview of the system, describes the design of the moving coils and shows first experimental result of the controller.

Date Published: 1 January 1998
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 3202, Microrobotics and Microsystem Fabrication, (1 January 1998); doi: 10.1117/12.298047

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3202:
Microrobotics and Microsystem Fabrication
Armin Sulzmann, Editor(s)