Fixture‐based industrial robot calibration for silicon wafer handling
Abstract
Purpose
Semiconductor manufacturing industry requires highly accurate robot operation with short install/setup downtime.
Design/methodology/approach
We develop a fast, low cost and easy‐to‐operate calibration system for wafer‐handling robots. The system is defined by a fixture and a simple compensation algorithm. Given robot repeatability, end effector uncertainties, and the tolerance requirements of wafer placement points, we derive fixture design and placement specifications based on a statistical tolerance model.
Findings
By employing the fixture‐based calibration, we successfully relax the tolerance requirement of the end effector by 20 times.
Originality/value
Semiconductor manufacturing requires fast and easy‐to‐operate calibration systems for wafer‐handling robots. In this paper, we describe a new methodology to solve this problem using fixtures. We develop fixture design criteria and a simple compensate algorithm to satisfy calibration requirements. We also verify our approach by a physical example.
Keywords
Citation
Tao Zhang, M. and Goldberg, K. (2005), "Fixture‐based industrial robot calibration for silicon wafer handling", Industrial Robot, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 43-48. https://doi.org/10.1108/01439910510573282
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited