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News Article

Integrating motion in the nanoworld

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Leading microscope manufacturer, FEI, claims that it will cut the costs of system integration by up to 50% in a project using a new type of motion control system.

Hillsboro (Oregon, USA) based FEI has been in the microscopy business since 1949, when it produced the world’s first Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM). Today, FEI manufactures a full range of microscopes, including scanning (SEM) and TEM types, plus dual-beam lab-based and related equipment. Its tools for NanotechTM featuring focused ion- and electron-beam technologies deliver 3D characterization, analysis and modification capabilities with resolution down to the sub-Ångström level.
Leading microscope manufacturer, FEI, claims that it will cut the costs of system integration by up to 50% in a project using a new type of motion control system.

Hillsboro (Oregon, USA) based FEI has been in the microscopy business since 1949, when it produced the world’s first Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM). Today, FEI manufactures a full range of microscopes, including scanning (SEM) and TEM types, plus dual-beam lab-based and related equipment. Its tools for NanotechTM featuring focused ion- and electron-beam technologies deliver 3D characterization, analysis and modification capabilities with resolution down to the sub-Ångström level.
Joint development project
With one of its major development facilities in Eindhoven (Netherlands), FEI is a close neighbor of Nyquist Industrial Control, which develops motion control systems for various applications in high-tech markets that include wafer handling in the semiconductor industry, the assembly of electronic components, special robots and handling systems, production systems for solar cells and the production of MEMS (Micro-Electronic Mechanical Systems). FEI began working with Nyquist because of its close proximity and because of the core competencies it has in house. But ten years later the relationship has led to a breakthrough in both performance and costs for FEI.

Supported by funding from Stimulus, which acts as a ‘motor’ for the growth of start-ups and small-to-mid-sized companies in the industrial sector in the region, the two companies have embarked on a project called “NewMotion”, which targets a modular motion-control system comprising various hardware and software packages from Nyquist’s new NYCe4000 industrial motion control system. Helping them with research into the necessary new control techniques is the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e). Basically, FEI will equip high-precision mechatronic systems with the NewMotion system NYCe4000 and implement and integrate them in electron microscopes. TU/e’s role is to study and develop new measurement and control algorithms in the field of motion-control technology. By means of fundamental applied scientific research, they will develop new measurement and control principles that will be used in the motion-control systems to increase the motion accuracy at the atomic level and achieve fluid motion in the nm/sec range.

Speed paradox
At the heart of an electron microscope are mechatronic specimen-manipulator stages, which FEI develops. In fulfilment of its role in the NewMotion project, FEI is developing new stages that will make it possible, for example, to work in the 1nm world in three dimensions. This new manipulator demands a movement and positioning accuracy down to the atomic level, which will be realized through a combination of special stage mechatronics and the new motion-control system.

“Paradoxically, the small world we are entering demands a different approach than the one required by manufacturers in other branches who normally want high positional accuracy at the fastest possible speed,” says Wim Wondergem, FEI’s Motion and Mechanics Manager. “Samples must be handled with extreme precision. In this instance, rather than scanning at high speed we require low-speed behaviour for our application, which employs a fairly new type of actuator called an ultrasonic piezo motor.”
At 1 nm per second, the slow but smooth motion required in order to achieve the high positioning accuracies that FEI will implement in its latest machines can be compared with the growth of a hair.

More for less
Although accurate positioning, speed of placement and the ability to overcome vibration generated by the machine itself are important, machines capable of working on the nanometer scale are increasingly sold to customers in the industrial sector. And in this respect, the new motion-control platform with integrated amplifier technology is both robust and priced low enough to have broad appeal. With everything necessary for controlling a complex machine contained in a single unit, it takes up a small amount of space and reduces the amount of cabling and the number of PCBs in a machine. This means that system and integration costs are reduced while availability and service level are increased. All of these aspects come increasingly to the fore as the electron microscope continues to evolve into an industrial measuring machine. “Achieving a breakthrough in cost reduction is the main driver,” admits Wondergem, “but factors, such as, ease of use, high reproducibility of manipulations, and high throughput of samples, etc., all play an increasing role in our business.” This is why FEI is building advanced computer-controlled mechatronic techniques into its microscopes.

At the same time, the company is pursuing new developments that will measure up to new requirements in 5 to 10 years time. And on the motion-control front, the NYCe4000 will be at the core of FEI’s new generation of products. “Price pressure is obviously a big driver these days, says Ad Scheepers, Nyquist’s Sales Manager. On top of delivering better performance with each generation, customers expect a lower price, or more for less.” One of the first customers to use Nyquist’s new motion-control system, FEI is proving to be a valuable launching customer, according to Scheepers. “Our intensive customer/supplier interaction is leading to new and profitable products, including a very extensive set of tools for diagnostics, tuning and system configuration. Up till now these were very time consuming processes for the customer.”


Pushing the limits
So, what are the ‘NewMotion’ stakeholders expecting to emerge from project? The answer is a new generation of motion-control systems whereby a shift will take place away from reliance on electronic hardware towards software and system components. There will be significant improvements in terms of performance, functionality and cost price, the latter being brought down significantly. “Compared to previous motion-control solutions, the integration of drives and motion control in a single unit will save 50% on costs,” confirms Wondergem.

Similarly, a new generation of manipulators with multiple axis coordinates will improve the performance of the motion system and the dynamic behaviour by a factor of 10 in all respects. This will be largely the result of new, balanced mechatronic constructions that make use of thermal compensation, vibration damping, a new type of linear measurement scale, coupled with play-free transmission, etc. In concrete terms, this will deliver a positional accuracy in the 100-nm order of magnitude and a relative accuracy of 10 nm with a drift of 0.1 nm/min. To achieve this extremely high level of stability, a special, balanced, thermal-compensation system is being developed whereby temperature as a function of time is held constant.

The movement accuracy of a sample using the multiple-axes manipulator on a TEM, for example, is critical for the quality of the electronic scan. This demands very slow movements at speeds of no more than 1 nm/s. In turn, this requires a high resolution with a step size of 1 nm. With NewMotion, the partners are targeting speeds that are a 15-fold improvement on the current situation. A big difficulty to overcome in this respect is the achievement of shock-free movement. As just a small number of encoder steps are made per increment of time, huge demands are placed on the regulator in the control unit. This must be able to generate a homogenous speed profile so that the actual speed of the sample being manipulated remains constant. Moreover, there is always a certain amount of vibration in a mechatronic system that can affect the end-position accuracy, a factor that is being taken into account in the design and construction phase.

Although ‘slowness’ of motion appears more relevant than ‘speed’ in microscopy applications, the measurement speed of the manipulator will be improved by a factor of 5 to 10 compared with existing systems. This raises the possibility to carry out measurements on multiple products in a reduced number of operations. The measurements in this case would take place sequentially but samples would be placed in the measurement room in a single charge. All thermal and movement-critical effects would thus be much smaller than in the existing situation whereby just a single measurement sample is loaded.

In addition, new possibilities for simulation and tooling will inevitably emerge from the NewMotion project. These will offer better and quicker ways of reaching an end result and/or solving a motion problem. The level of services around a standard solution is growing more important in the development of mechatronic systems and problem solving in the field. Support tooling and technical know-how play an increasing role and together with the product form the system package for sale.

Motion-control platform
For its part, Nyquist is supplying hardware modules for various application areas, such as low power, high power and piezo control, all with the electronic drive and the control in a single unit. The hardware architecture enables the required functionality to be developed using software. Similarly, software modules for applications, configuration, tuning, simulation, path generation, testing and measurement are being developed to support the customer in implementing motion in a machine. The ‘FireWire’ communication bus forms the backbone of the architecture, whereby the generated motion commands are fed to the appropriate motion controllers at high speed.

The chosen platform targets applications where speed and accuracy combined with low cost and fast time to market are essential. The NYCE4000 is actually less than the size of a compact industrial PC, yet it provides multiple-axes motion control and configurable safety functionality. A single control system supports standard 8 axes per unit, with a maximum of 62 units in a network.

Compliant with both UL and EMC standards, the NYCe4000 includes integrated drives that make it possible to control a machine or a machine subsystem with up to 10 axes and with a total of 110 digital inputs/outputs and 20 analog input/outputs. Measurement systems supported include traditional S0/S90 encoders, SinCos encoders, analog position signal, EnDat and others. All related motion, input/output, and digital/analog interfaces are onboard.

The integration of a flexible, universal drive with the motion control system makes it suitable for both low-power servo axes and stepper axes (driven by motors up to 500W), opening up the possibility of controlling all motors in a machine with the same drive type. As it is easy to integrate a customer-specific connector board into the system, no additional external connector panels are required because the connectors of sensors used in a machine can be plugged directly into the motion-control system itself.

The combination of high-speed motion control with the drive and inputs/outputs in one box reduces cabling, extends uptime and improves serviceability while lowering system and integration costs. Moreover, using one compact system to replace a separate control system, separate drives, separate input/output blocks and separate distribution boards saves space.

Initiated in September 2004, the NewMotion project is due to run until the end of 2006, but the NYCe4000 motion control platform will be available from July 2005 onwards.
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