• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.138-147
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• 2001

Alignment systems are frequently used under various semiconductor manufacturing environment. Particularly in PDP(Plasma Display Panel) manufacturing process, the alignment system is applied to the combining and sealing processes of the upper and lower glass panels of PDP, where these processes are performed in the vacuum chamber of high vacuum and high temperature. In this paper, the XYΘ-alignment stage is developed to align PDP panels. Because of high vacuum and high temperature environment, the alignment chamber has been designed to isolate the inner part of the alignment chamber from the outer environment of high vacuum and high temperature, in which every part of the alignment stage is inserted. As it is difficult to attach feedback sensors to the alignment stage in the alignment chamber, the alignment stage is implemented with the open loop algorithm, where the parallel link structure has been designed using step-motors and ball-screws for structural simplicity. The kinematic analysis is performed to drive the parallel link structure, based on the experiments of actuation-compensation of the alignment stage. For the error compensation, the hyperpatch model has been used to model the errors. From the experiments, the positional accuracy of the alignment stage can be improved significantly.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.74-79
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• 2011

Alignment systems with multi-axis motions are applied to determine vertical arrangement of multilayer assembly such as LCD, PDP, and MLCC. This study reports the development of XY${\theta}$ alignment stage which is designed as thin-type structure and parallel actuations. The thin-type parallel XY${\theta}$ alignment stage is maintained below $1{\mu}m$ in repeatability error. The squareness and straightness also allow precise motion for the alignment by the developed stage. The measured error is ${\pm}6.25{\mu}m$ in the alignment experiment by the vision system on the parallel XY${\theta}$ alignment stage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.314-317
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• 2005

As demands of VBNS and VDSL increase, the development of kernel parts of optical communication such as PLC(Planar Light Circuit), Coupler, and WDM elements increases. The alignment and the attachment technology are very important in the fabrication of optical elements. The ultra precision stage wasn't yet applied in the optical alignment and the optical element alignment was taken too many times. In this paper, the optical element alignment of ultra precision positioning stage was studied. The alignment algorithm is comprised of field search and peak search algorithms. The procedure of the alignment algorithms applied to the ultra precision positioning stage are developed by LabView programming.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.1233-1240
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• 2010

In the flat panel display and semiconductor industries, the visual alignment system is considered as a core technology which determines the productivity of a manufacturing line. It consists of the vision system to extract the centroids of alignment marks and the stage control system to compensate the alignment error. In this paper, we develop a Kalman filter algorithm to estimate the alignment mark postures and propose a coarse-fine alignment control method which utilizes both original fine images and reduced coarse ones in the visual feedback. The error compensation trajectory for the distributed joint servos of the alignment stage is generated in terms of the inverse kinematic solution for the misalignment in task space. In constructing the estimation algorithm, the equation of motion for the alignment marks is given by using the forward kinematics of alignment stage. Secondly, the measurements for the alignment mark centroids are obtained from the reduced images by applying the geometric template matching. As a result, the proposed Kalman filter based coarse-fine alignment control method enables a considerable reduction of alignment time.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.756-760
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• 2011

This paper proposed an alignment stage driven by piezo actuators for alignment process of a contact-type lithography. Among contact-type lithography processes, an UV-curable nanoimprint process is an unique process to be able to align patterns on upper and lower layers. An alignment stage of the UV-curable nanoimprint process requires nano-level resolution as well as high stiffness to overcome friction force due to contact moving. In this paper, the alignment stage consists of a compliant mechanism using flexure hinges, piezo actuators for high force generation, and capacitive sensors for high-resolution measurement. The compliant mechanism is implemented by four prismatic-prismatic compliant chains for two degree-of-freedom translations. The compliant mechanism is composed of flexure hinges with high stiffness, and it is directly actuated by the piezo actuators which increases the stiffness of the mechanism, also. The performance of the ultra-precision stage is demonstrated by experiments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.301-302
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• 2006

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.12 s.177
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• pp.175-183
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• 2005

In recent years, as the demands of VBNS and VDSL increase, the development of kernel parts of optical communication such as PLC(Planar Light Circuit), Coupler, and WDM elements increases. The alignment and the attachment technology are very important in the fabrication of optical elements. In this Paper, the optical alignment characteristic of multi-axis ultra precision stage is studied. The alignment algorithms are studied for applying to the ultra precision multi-axis stage. The alignment algorithm is comprised of field search and peak search algorithms. The contour of optical power signals can be obtained by field search and the precise coordinate can be found out by peak search. Three kinds of alignments, such as 1 ch. input vs. 1 ch. output optical stack, 1 ch. input vs. 8 ch. output PLC stacks, and ferrule vs. ferrule, are performed for investigating the alignment characteristics.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.64-70
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• 2006

The optical element was usually used in optical devices and optical transfer devices, but it has been recently used in communication, computer and medical equipment. With the development of very high speed optical-communication, the development of the kernel parts of optical communication has also increased. Presently, the alignment of the optical element is time consuming, and an effective alignment algorithm has not yet to be developed. In this paper, the alignment automation of the optical element is studied. The ultra precision stage is applied to an optical element alignment to improve the accuracy of the alignment. The automation program of the optical element alignment is developed by LabVIEW programming to save the alignment time. The alignment algorithms of the optical element consist of field search and peak search algorithms.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.909-915
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• 2009

This work is to develop a vision system for high precision alignment between upper and lower plates required at the imprinting process of the large LCD flat panel. We compose a gantry-stage that has highly repeated accuracy for high precision alignment and achieves analysis about thermal transformations of stage itself. Position error in the stage is corrected by feedback control from the analysis. This system can confirm alignment mark of upper and lower plates by using two cameras at a time for the alignment of two plates. Pattern matching that uses geometric feature is proposed to consider the recognition problem for alignment mark of two plates. It is algorithm to correct central point and angle for the alignment from the recognized mark of upper and lower plates based on the special characteristics. At the alignment process, revision for error position is performed through Look and Move techniques.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1190-1193
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• 2005

In recent years, as the demands of VBNS and VDSL increase, the development of kernel parts of optical communication such as PLC(Planar Light Circuit), Coupler, and WDM elements increases. The alignment and the attachment technology are very important in the fabrication of optical elements. In this paper, the optical alignment characteristics of multi-axis ultra precision stage were studied. The alignment algorithms were studied for applying to the ultra precision multi-axis stage. The alignment algorithm is comprised of field search and peak search algorithms. The contour of optical power signals can be obtained by field search and the precise coordinate can be found out by peak search. Two kinds of alignments, such as 1 ch. input vs. 1 ch. output optical stack, and 1 ch. input vs. 8 ch. output PLC stacks were performed for investigating the alignment characteristics.