Substrate Plate Cycloidal Drive for Coating Uniformity
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing substrate plates in coating systems face issues with rotational speed limitations, gear complexity, and wear, leading to uneven coating and frequent malfunctions due to high operating temperatures and impurities, especially when stacking plates or handling small, high-precision substrates like engine components.
Innovation Solution
A substrate plate with a cycloidal gear mechanism featuring an eccentric drive element and a support lever that decouples from the drive in case of overload, ensuring precise control and protection against rotational errors, while maintaining a simple and cost-effective design with minimal moving components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a common central drive via a drive wheel is used to rotate substrate plates, then the substrate holders can be driven, but the rotational speed control becomes complex and wear increases due to multiple moving components
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the drive element from the traditional central drive wheel configuration and relocates it to the chamber floor, allowing each substrate plate to be driven independently. This eliminates the complex multi-plate drive mechanism while maintaining the ability to control rotational speeds individually, thereby reducing overall system complexity and wear.
2Productivity
If substrate plates are stacked one on top of the other to increase capacity, then more substrates can be coated, but rotational errors cause uneven coating and frequent malfunctions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the drive system so that each substrate plate has its own independent drive mechanism rather than being coupled through a single central drive. This segmentation allows each plate to rotate independently without rotational errors affecting stacked plates, ensuring uniform coating while maintaining high productivity through multi-plate configuration.
3Ease of operation
If traditional gear mechanisms are used to drive substrate holders, then rotation is achieved, but wear and impurity entry lead to frequent malfunctions under high operating temperatures
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a protective sleeve as an intermediary element that encloses the gear mechanism. This sleeve prevents impurities from entering the gear system while still allowing the gear to function, thereby reducing wear and malfunction frequency under high operating temperatures without compromising the rotation capability of substrate holders.
4Speed
If the drive wheel is made larger to reduce rotational speed, then speed control improves, but the distance to the next substrate holder is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the drive mechanism dynamic by allowing adjustable rotational speeds for each substrate plate independently, rather than using a fixed large drive wheel. This dynamic control enables speed adjustment without increasing the physical size of the substrate plate, thereby maintaining both speed control and adequate spacing between substrates.
Data Source
Figure 1a~1b
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
The substrate plate (1) comprises substrate receptions for holding a substrate, and a drive, which drives the substrate receptions and has an eccentric drive element and a carrier element guidable from the drive element to a circular path around a plate axis (6) of the substrate plate, where each substrate reception is rotatably mounted onto the substrate plate around a substrate axis. The carrier element is a toothed wheel, which is supported on several bolts connected with the substrate plate and running parallel to the plate axis and drives the substrate reception over a sun gear. The substrate plate (1) comprises substrate receptions for holding a substrate, and a drive, which drives the substrate receptions and has an eccentric drive element and a carrier element guidable from the drive element to a circular path around a plate axis (6) of the substrate plate, where each substrate reception is rotatably mounted onto the substrate plate around a substrate axis. The carrier element is a toothed wheel, which is supported on several bolts connected with the substrate plate and running parallel to the plate axis, drives the substrate reception over a sun gear and has a central hole, in which an eccentric circular disc arranged to the plate axis slides as drive element. The substrate axes are opposite to the plate axis. The substrate plate has a shaft (7), which runs in the plate axis and has a positioning element for rotationally fixedly connecting with a supporting shaft of a coating system. The drive element is connected with a radial supporting lever functioning over the substrate reception. The supporting lever is connected with the drive element only up to an overload torque in a rotationally fixed manner. The substrate plate has a supporting sleeve (5), which laterally encloses the substrate plate. The supporting sleeve has bolts and the substrate receptions penetrate through the supporting sleeve into the holes. An independent claim is included for a system for coating substrates.