The ultimate goal of this project is to develop a manipulation system enabling unskilled operators to deal with objects in micron or sub-micron size as easily as to deal with objects in usual size. Described in this paper is the results achieved in the first phase of the research, in which the focusing point is given to the conceptual design, the prototype development and the operability evaluation. The system is modularized into the manipulation unit, the control unit and the man-machine interface. The manipulation unit is further comprised of a twin-arm manipulator mounted on a rotary table and a specimen stage with four degrees of freedom linear along X, Y and Z direction, and rotational around the Z-axis. The manipulator is driven by PZT actuators with magnifier elements and able to cover an envelope as wide a 200 micrometer for each axis of X, Y and Z. Instead of doing a direct operation, the operator steers the manipulator via an user-friendly interface which is designed to absorb the optical and mechanical variations. It allows the operator to concentrate to the manipulation without paying mach attentions to the changes in magnification of SEM or other conditions. The control unit merges the visual information of the SEM and the manipulation information from the user interface and derives the optimum locomotion of the arm for the desired operation.

Date Published: 2 September 1999
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 3878, Miniaturized Systems with Micro-Optics and MEMS, (2 September 1999);

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3878:
Miniaturized Systems with Micro-Optics and MEMS
M. Edward Motamedi; Rolf Goering, Editor(s)