Grant supplies bespoke refrigeration to Vistec Lithography
Engineers at Vistec Lithography's development facility in Cambridge, England, needed a high-precision refrigeration system for its new VB300 product to provide ultra stable (to ±0.01°C) temperature control within a range of 12 to 22°C, flow rate 1 to 2 litres per minute, max pressure 2 to 3 bar and a cooling capacity of 250W. The equipment also needs to connect to a host computer over a DeviceNet to provide operators with real-time temperature monitoring and alarm outputs.
Peter Goodall, manufacturing and quality production engineer at Vistec Lithography, said: "Grant's custom solution has exceeded our expectations. Their engineering team listened to our requirements and developed a well-engineered, extremely reliable temperature control system which is highly serviceable and extremely cost-effective.Maintaining a stable water temperature is critical to controlling the accuracy of the electro-magnetic lens within the state-of-the-artVB300 system therefore we needed a supplier with a proven track record and substantial thermodynamics expertise."
Vistec Lithography's VB300 electron beam system is designed for use in advanced production and R&D applications to create the ultra-fine images used in the semiconductor and nanotechnology industries.
"We were very impressed by Grant's solution and in particular their flexibility and speed of responsiveness," added Amin Javer, senior system design engineer at Vistec Lithography. "For example, we decided after the first system was delivered to add inline thermal detection capability. We discussed this with Grant's engineers and within a matter of weeks they proposed and implemented an innovative solution which fully met our brief - it was an incredibly quick turnaround."
Paul Pergande, head of Grant Technologies, said: "We pride ourselves on providing our customers with fast-turnaround custom-built solutions using our considerable expertise in thermodynamics, data acquisition and equipment design. We are delighted to see that our temperature control system has now been integrated by Vistec into their VB300 lithography machine."
