June 19, 2015 - Physik Instrumente announces PIglide HS Planar XY air bearing stage that is suitable for wafer inspection and scribing applications, as well as other ultra-precision motion applications, such as flat panel inspection.
The PIglide HS uses magnetically preloaded air-bearings on the Y axes, and a vacuum preloaded X-Y puck that floats on the reference surface. The cross-beam mounts to the Y axis via a highly engineered flexural coupling that provides yaw-compliance without sacrificing system stiffness.
The gantry axis is a dual air-bearing H-bridge design that incorporates dual linear motors and dual linear encoders. This improves turnaround performance while providing the added benefit of orthogonality/yaw/straightness control. Ironless linear motors provide smooth motion and no cogging or attractive forces.
Both incremental and absolute encoder options are available. The PIglide HS incorporates three high-accuracy linear encoders, one for the bridge axis and two for the gantry axis. Each encoder is mounted so that the scale centerline is as close to the working plane as possible to reduce Abbe errors.
The PIglide HS is coupled with digital controls that offer servo update rates (up to 5 kHz), advanced control algorithms to improve dynamic performance and error compensation, and a wide suite of software development tools.
Features & Advantages
- Active yaw and straightness compensation provides superior straightness of motion
- Travels up to 500mm x 1000mm
- Advanced servo algorithms for optimum stability, move and settle, and scanning performance
- Absolute linear encoders available
