Continued Wafer Track Modernization

Phonon-Sponsored Senior Design Group

News

    Phonon Corporation has a specific need in upgrading automated wafer-handling systems used in the fabrication of surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices.  The wafer-handling systems are used to clean, apply photoresist, and other development processes.  The project is to upgrade the wafer-handling system.  In particular, the motivation is to interface the system with a computer in order to implement a graphical user interface (GUI), which will greatly increase the functionality.  The system's sequence will then be user-selectable, and the system will programmed to log relevant data via a network connection.

Project Summary

Preparing for presentations; writing report.

Current Status

5/1/08 - This week we installed an amplifier to run the spin motor. The spin motor uses 120AC at its maximum speed; however, because of the inadequacies of the spindle chuck the motor can only maintain a speed of around 100RPM before a wafer becomes unbalanced. We have also removed the electrocution hazard from our project from grounding the chassis. This has changed our chassis voltage from 110AC to 0V.

The software has been finished and is user friendly. The program reads the required tables and processes the wafers according to the specified recipes. We are officially finished with our project. Thank you, Phonon (especially Tom), for your support and generosity.

4/24/08 - We have programmed the entire routine in DMC smart language. This will have to be implemented in VBA.

In the hardware portion of our project we have finalized the hundreds of wires to the Galil motion controller. This device  is now connecting to ALL sensors and solonoids correctly, vacuum and pneumatic pressure will be added next week for testing of the routine and migration to the VBA language.

4/17/08 - Software implementation has commenced. A prototype graphical user interface has been developed, and Access database communication is active. I/O subroutines have been written.

4/15/08 - Hardik Upadhyay, having not participated, announces resignation from the group. Optical sensors have arrived and support circuits have been completed in a finalized form. All sensors have been tested, troubleshot, and remedied. They all work properly now.

4/12/08 - As we await the sensors arrival we are connecting and calibrating the vacuum sensors. We expect hardware to be finished this week, at which point software design will commence.

4/2/08 - This week we created many support circuits for the optical sensors. Also we discovered that some optical sensors are not operational. New ones are slated to arrive on Wednesday.

3/20/08 - We gutted the old power supply, removed mystery blocks and broken relays. We changed old fuses to buses for +/- 12V and +/- 2.5V and ground. Set up the power supply to work on its own. This is fused on the hot wire with a 5A fuse.  It is now powering the Galil and the relays. Attached relay board to track chassis and connected solenoids. All applicable solenoids tested. Lastly, we hooked up Galil to run off the power supply; however we have determined that the existing power supply is unable to meet our power requirements.

2/15/08 - This week we are connecting parts to the Galil Controller. This involves buying the d-subs for the connection to this controller. We have gotten in the relay board, and plan on connecting they solenoids to it. Thomas has helped us understand the old setup and we have begun to redesign it. The new Galil looks like it might have come in faulty so we will call about that this week too. Tom will not be in this week but we plan on meeting twice to try to get some serious progress on the hardware part.

2/7/08 - In the last two weeks Hardik and Aaron have separated from David and Paul to get this project rolling quicker. Paul and David have taken over the software part, and Hardik and Aaron have started the hardware part.

Hardik and Aaron removed all the wires from the PLC and finished the painstaking task of labeling what each of the over 100 wires went to. We are waiting for the break out boxes to connect these wires to the existing Galil controller to begin programming it.

Paul and David with Toms help have become familiar with VBA. They have created several data bases that link to each other to create manager controlled recipes. These recipes will be retrieved from a main server with work orders.

2/5/08 - Access programming has commenced. Removed PLC from wafer track. Associated wires have all been labeled and documented for integration with new Galil. The new, six-axis Galil, is slated to arrive on February 10th.

12/6/07 - Final day of classes of the fall semester.  Our final report is now posted.

12/5/07 - This week we gave our final presentation. The presentation is posted on our Documents page. This is the last senior design class of the semester.

We also ran the whole program written by last years group and went through it to try to understand. We have reverse engineered much of the code; however there are some variables we still don’t quite understand.

11/29/07 - This week we became more familiar with the Galil programming language. We ran the track system through debug mode and saw what it did step by step. Thomas showed us some of the commands we didn’t understand well. We also discussed with Dr. Tehranipoor what he would like to see done in the final weeks.

We have decided to change the Galil motion controller to a six axes version. This is because the current controller will not have enough outputs.

11/22/07 - (Thanksgiving Break)

11/15/07 - With the help of Devis Dishnica, a new design bench has been arranged to accommodate the wafer track. Also, we successfully connected and configured the track to our bench computer.

Also, we visited Phonon in Simsbury, CT to meet the engineers and take a tour of the clean room facility in which our track will ultimately be operated. We discussed in further detail requirements of the project, such as specific parameters, and wafer sequences, and “recipes”.

11/8/07 - Proposal posted on Documents page. This week we discussed changing our room to a larger one to account for the size of the track system. We discussed with Thomas about adding a module to the Galil to make it source more power to the solenoids. Another option would be to buy a completely different Galil controller that would add another axis and source more power. We will make these decisions in the coming week. Also we plan on adding two programs to our computer so we can program the Galil. Paul researched the Galil catalog for these solutions and also looked at solid state relays.

11/1/07 -  Wafer-track demonstration performed by Thomas.

10/29/07 - Gave our first presentation, posted on Documents page.

10/25/07 - Met with Thomas Reinwald and the project was explained to us in better detail. We now know which data the track system needs to collect. We also met David Sidoti, a freshman who will be helping us with our work. Hardik Upadhyay has agreed to assist the group for the second semester. We are beginning to learn the programming language for the Galil.

10/20/07 - Wafer track delivered by Thomas and placed in senior design room.  Inspected interior of device.

10/16/07 - Problems with delivering the track system delayed progress on our project this week. While scheduled for Thursday phonon was not able to get a truck to deliver to Uconn.  Deadline for specification was extended due to Phonon not being able to meet with us this week. We plan on starting out presentation within the next 24 hours.  Our group member, Dennis Manning, has announced that he will be leaving the course. Two meetings took place to discuss our lack of a group member. We are hoping that Hardik Upadhyay will be willing to take Dennis’s place next semester when actual implementation takes place.

10/11/07 - Meeting held with Dr. Tehranipoor, Aaron, and Paul. Discussion of specification.  Dennis Manning is officially no longer a member of the group.  We will proceed as a two-person group.

 

10/3/07 - Project statement submitted.

 

10/1/07 - First meeting held.  Participants include Paul Rago, Aaron Feldstein, Tom Reinwald, and Dr. Tehranipoor.  The project preliminaries were discussed.  The plan is to interface a computer with the wafer processing machine and write software which will allow any operation and/or sequence of operations to be carried out.  A graphical-user-interface will be employed.

 

9/20/07 - Dennis Manning announces uncertainty of participation in the group.  His membership status remains unknown.

 

9/10/07 - Team assigned.  Members include Paul Rago, Aaron Feldstein, and Dennis Manning.  Project assigned is upgrading Phonon wafer processing unit.  Phonon is a company which designs and fabricates signal processing modules for radar and telecommunications, employing the phenomenon of surface acoustic waves.