The engineers at ALIO constantly strive to create ‘a better way’ to meet and exceed the demands of automated motion control standards for precision. Currently the competition's legacy products and their related successors are falling rapidly behind ALIO's designs.

The design work that is being done at ALIO is unique from the onset, within the very first moments of the idea. It is this unique thinking and design approach that is producing these revolutionary patented and patent pending products.

XYZ Air Bearing System - Inspection Tool True

Nano™ Applications

The lasers interferometers on 3 Axes with the Precitec white laser sensor which has less than 100nm of accuracy.

This specialised system was sold to a world leader in optics and lithography equipment to measure high precision optics to achieve the following:

Repeatability < +/-2nm

Accuracy < +/-200nm over

Straightness < 1um over 100mm of travel

Quantifying and measuring in order to control costs, improve quality and the future of design(s) for increased productivity resulting in sales have been the key elements to the recently released X-Y-Z Air Bearing Inspection Tool.

ALIO's product design and development stems from years of research; the selection of products and designs that are targeted towards adding novel equipment that is not commercially available to the mainstream market.

ALIO is frequently credited with providing 'advanced technology' to the commercial market as noted by one customer, "With the development of our 1-picoliter jetting capability for materials deposition, new tools were needed to test and verify print head performance against application requirements. We undertook this joint development because there were no tools available to meet our stringent requirement. We are pleased by the results of our collaboration and meeting of our design objectives"

Dan West
Systems Engineering Manager
FujiFILM-Dimatix

ALIO Vice President Dan Crews adds "The list could really go on and on depending on how you need to apply the science. The good news with our products is that the sales and engineering team are dedicated to helping our customers integrate systems successfully for the most accurate results and usually for a fraction of the cost of well known, less precise systems. ALIO is delivering nano products while everyone else is just talking about it."

The introduction of this system into the product line will help enable True Nano ™ positioning and applications in numerous markets including but not limited to: Nano machining, metrology, lithography, optical and lens inspections.

ALIO's industry leading precision is allowing for improved accuracy for solar scribe, leading to higher manufacturing yields and efficiencies

Air Bearing XY Planar System

Large Payload plus 3+ Meter Travel

• Accuracy < 500 nm
• Repeatability < 200 nm
• Flatness < 1 μm
• Straightness < 1μm
• Pitch & Yaw < 1 arc sec
• Patent Pending

Applications

• Solar Scribe
• Ink Jet Deposition
• Lithography
• Metrology
• Semiconductor
• Flat Panel Display
• Laser Machining

True Nano Positioning™

The continuous development of new research, technologies, and opportunities in nano-technology is driving a need for precision motion and automation solutions that provide accurate and verifiable motion at the nanometer level.

The mass marketing use of the ‘nano’ term has created many misconceptions of how existing products perform at the nanometer level. Many motion products labeled as ‘nano’ fail to meet nanometer motion specifications (such as accuracy, repeatability, flatness, straightness) because they are slightly modified versions of current or past generation products. There is a gap for many in the motion control industry in what is required to produce products that position accurately at the nanometer level. Numerous factors that are minor concerns at the micrometer level can drastically restrict performance at the nanometer level.

As an example, ALIO's patented Hexapod includes 5 nanometer resolution, 6 degrees of freedom around a virtual point in space, speeds of up to 200 mm/sec, and sub-micron repeatability. This product is one of many that form the basis of the next generation of automated nano-positioning systems for the most demanding applications in photonics, packaging, test, micro machining, government, measurement, flat panel, solar, lithography,medical and semiconductor manufacturing. By deviating from past generation products and producing True Nano™ positioning designs, projects can be fast tracked, procedures can be streamlined, production(s) can be increased, and quality can improve all resulting in higher yield rates.

Nano Z™ (Patent Pending)

ALIO Industries mechanical bearing XY stage is designed to exceed past designs with sub micron precision. For laser tested flatness and straightness of less than +/-1um per 150mm of travel, ALIO's linear stages are an order of magnitude flatter and straighter than the industry standard of +/-2um per 25mm thus lending themselves to metrology applications were air bearings were previously required. Calibrated accuracy of less than +/- 0.2 microns over 300 mm travel is also available.

Current legacy design standards on the market for a vertical motion metrology have been limited to the z-wedge stages. This design fails to be precise due to multiple mechanical bearings and multiple machined components that are difficult to hold tight tolerances due to the angled surfaces. The accuracy, straightness, pitch, yaw and roll specifications of a z-wedge suffer due to the large number of error components associated with the design. ALIO Industries' response is a precision vertical air bearing solution ensuring industry leading performance. Our design incorporates purely linear technology ensuring the removal of parasitic errors and quick response time due to the linear actuators. The NANO-Z design has better than +/- 0.05microns of accuracy over 25 mm of travel to exceed focusing needs of today and tomorrow's metrology systems.

The combination of ALIO's metrology grade XY stage with the NANO-Z stage brings a new matrix to cost effective ultra precision metrology.

In the midst of all the buzz words of the 21st first century, 'Nano', 'Cube Farms', 'Treeware', 'Dilberted' and '404' there is one word that you are hearing everywhere and it too is being egregiously misused.

As if the 'Nano' play wasn't bad enough now there is a full on marketing terrorism attack on ‘Going Green’. Basically any company that recycles is attaching this word to their business. Paperless billers are now 'Green' companies. While strives to take your company green are to be commended, simply switching out one resource for another (i.e. paper for electricity) is not exactly what our ‘Green Forefathers’ had in mind.

Going GREEN is no less than the pursuit of alternative CLEAN energy. ALIO has taken this measure to heart and has designed products to assist solar panel manufacturers produce panels that create more solar cells. For example, ALIO's industry leading precision is allowing for improved accuracy for solar scribe leading to higher manufacturing yields and efficiencies. This technology is an exciting addition to the product line and we look forward to promoting this product within the solar panel manufacturing community to better serve the cause of ‘going GREEN’.