Wafer Robot Arm Calibration in a Sealed Autoteach Enclosure
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional methods for teaching, calibrating, and diagnosing robot arms in semiconductor processing systems require manual intervention, leading to exposure of sealed environments, contamination risks, and lengthy requalification processes, which impact line yield, scheduling, and energy usage.
Innovation Solution
An autoteach enclosure system with a scannable autoteach pin and calibration substrate allows for automatic teaching, calibration, and diagnostic operations within a sealed environment, using a robot arm to determine fixed locations and detect errors without opening the wafer processing system.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If manual teaching, calibration, and diagnostic operations are performed on robot arms, then the robot arm can be configured and maintained, but the sealed environment must be opened causing contamination risks and lengthy requalification processes
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables self-service through the autoteach pin and calibration substrate that automatically provide reference features for the robot arm to scan and learn positions. The robot arm performs self-calibration by scanning these features without human intervention, eliminating the need to open the sealed environment while maintaining calibration accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The autoteach pin and calibration substrate serve as intermediary objects that facilitate the calibration process. These physical reference features act as mediators between the robot arm's sensing system and the enclosure system, enabling automatic position learning and error detection while the sealed environment remains intact.
2Loss of time
If the sealed environment is opened for calibration operations, then manual teaching can be performed, but contamination risks increase and requalification time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The calibration substrate and autoteach pin are pre-positioned within the enclosure system at known locations. This preliminary setup allows the robot arm to perform calibration operations immediately upon docking without requiring the sealed environment to be opened, thereby eliminating both contamination risks and requalification time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual mechanical calibration operations with an automated optical scanning system. The robot arm uses sensors to scan the autoteach pin and calibration substrate features, automatically determining positions and calculating errors without human intervention or opening the sealed environment.
3Productivity
If automatic autoteach operations are implemented, then teaching speed and precision improve, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system achieves automatic teaching by changing the parameter of position reference from manual measurement to automated optical scanning. The autoteach pin and calibration substrate provide fixed geometric parameters that the robot arm's sensor system can rapidly scan and interpret, enabling high-speed automatic position learning without complex computational algorithms.
Data Source
AI summary
A calibration system is of a wafer processing system. The calibration system includes a calibration substrate configured to be disposed on a plurality of support structures of the wafer processing system. The calibration substrate includes a calibration pin. The calibration substrate enables a calibration operation of a robot arm of the wafer processing system to automatically determine robot arm error of the robot arm.