Magnetic Bearings

Active Guiding with Nanometer Path Fidelity

New Perspectives

Air-bearing solutions and magnetic linear motors currently represent the state of the art in inspection and manufacturing systems in the semiconductor industry. However, with increasing requirements for achieving nanometer precision or for applications in vacuum or nitrogen atmosphere, such systems soon reach their limits.

New perspectives are offered by high-precision magnetic direct drives, as they largely refrain from using mechanical components: Less friction and backlash, more precision!

Characteristics of Magnetic Levitation

Magnetic levitation ensures excellent guiding accuracy in a plane, both linear and rotational: The passive rod levitates on a magnetic field and is actively guided by the field. Sequence errors are measured and compensated by very accurate contact-free sensors. Contrary to air bearings, which are also very accurate, magnetic bearings can also be used in a vacuum. New perspectives for high-precision positioning systems: The PIMag® 6-D is a study for a planar positioning system with magnetic drive and 6-D sensor. The system can detect and compensate deviations from the ideal path in all six motion axes.

 

New perspectives for high-precision positioning systems: The PIMag® 6-D is a study for a planar positioning system with magnetic drive and 6-D sensor. The system can detect and compensate deviations from the ideal path in all six motion axes.

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Products

Voice coil actuators and magnetic linear motors offer advantages compared to common spindle-based technologies, especially with regard to wear and dynamics. Since they use as few mechanical components as possible, this results in less friction and backlash and thus more precision.

Stages with Magnetic Direct-Drive Linear Motor

Stages with Magnetic Direct-Drive Linear Motor

Technology