News
2012
Thin Wafer Handling For CMP Tool
Santa Clara, CA; Feb 05, 2011 – A leading provider of CMP/Grinding tool OEM has placed a repeated order for Quartet Mechanics wafer handllers to meet this 50-micron thin wafer need. The customer's CMP tool features high flexibility and most advanced technology to meet the growing demand in wafer thinning application for global semiconductor, Data Storage, MEMS, LED, Photonics and Precision Optics industries. Aside from a dozen of developed handlers for other substrates, Quartet Mechanics helped the OEM with the handling of the thinned wafer starting from the beginning of 2011. The repeated order is another recognition of the superior R&D team work at Quartet Mechanics.
2011
Repeated Order Acquired From a Sapphire Wafer Maker
Santa Clara, CA; Aug 27, 2011 Santa Clara, CA– Quartet Mechanics announced today that an existing customer, a leading monocrystalline sapphire substrates and products manufacturer in the USA, has placed another repeated order for the Automated Visual Inspecting (AVI) Sorter.
This customer has been expanding its manufacturing capacity in light of the growing demand for large-diameter wafers for the silicon-on-sapphire (SoS) RFIC market. The tool can handle 6" or 8" sapphire wafer flipping and placement. With the heavy 6" or 8" sapphire wafer, a rigid robot and a highly-secured gripper are important to prevent wafer breakage. Another automation challenge is to pick/place a 0.6~1.3mm thick wafer from/to a standard 6" and 8" wafer cassette (4.76mm and 6.00mm pitch respectively).
Quartet Mechanics’ slim wafer handler addresses this issue and generates a user-friendly, semi-auto inspection tool. The operator can now focus on the visual inspection to assure the surface specification is met while all the wafer transferring and ID recording & verifying are left to the robotic system.
New 300mm Thin Wafer Vortex Gripper Shipped To One European Customer
Santa Clara, CA; March 29, 2011 – Quartet Mechanics shipped its first vortex type edge gripper for handling 300mm thin wafers. With 3 years' experience in handling 150mm and 200mm 50 microns thin wafers, Quartet Mechanics utilizes this technology for developing the new handler for 300mm 75 microns thickness with warpage. While existing thin wafer handling solutions in the market are encountering wafer centering and placement accuracy issues, Quartet Mechanics incorporates its "soft-touch" (on exclusion zone only) to address this issue.
A USA Sapphire Wafer Manufacturers Demonstrates A Higher Yield & Through-put Production Using Quartet Mechanics Automated Visual Inspector- AVI 200
Santa Clara, CA; Feb 25, 2011 – A leading provider of sapphire substrates in USA has demonstrated an improved yield and throughput of its wafer production by using their recently acquired Automated Visual Inspecting Sorter (AVI-200) from Quartet Mechanics.
The LED market experienced an unprecedented growth in 2010, generating a strong demand for sapphire substrates used for the manufacturing of blue and white GaN based LED’s. To meet the booming demand, this sapphire wafer maker is equipped with the most advanced process and metrology tools across the production line to assure the productivity and quality.
The only human intervention happens at the out-going inspection area, which creates not only possible contamination but also a bottle-neck for product shipment. After the customer explores the current offerings from the market, Quartet Mechanics’ Automated Visual Inspection (AVI) sorter is the one chosen because it contains all the required elements, including wafer flipping and clear wafer ID reading, and can install it within a very short leadtime. With the new semi-automatic wafer handling tool installed, it not only removes the “stressful” operation in 24x7 manual handling the substrates but also eliminates data entry errors with its automatic wafer ID capturing, verification and reporting features.
