JP2003194055A - Guide rail - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a guide rail lightweight in construction and capable of accomplishing a high positioning accuracy, etc. <P>SOLUTION: The guide rail 5 consists of a sintered body of a silicon nitride series substance and is composed of minor diametric side faces (A-surface) of through holes 19a-19l, major diametric side faces (B-surface) on the opposite side, and C-surface and D-surface as side faces continued to A-surface and B-surface. The flatness of the B-surface of the guide rail 5 is below 10 μm (for example, 5 μm), while the flatness of the C-surface and D-surface is below 20 μm (for example, 10 μm). The parallelism of the A-surface with the B-surface of the guide rail 5 is below 10 μm (for example, 5 μm), while the parallelism of the D-surface with the C-surface is below 10 μm (for example, 5 μm). <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a guide rail used for carrying semiconductor parts in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, for example.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the precision of electronic devices and semiconductor parts has been improved, and therefore, higher precision is required for positioning when manufacturing these devices and parts. Has become.

For example, in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, a slide device for holding and moving a semiconductor component is used in order to carry and position a semiconductor component such as a semiconductor chip. Are usually made of metal.

[0004]

However, in the above-described slide device (particularly the guide rail), due to the characteristics of the metal of the material of the guide rail, the entire guide rail is bent due to the weight and temperature of the guide rail. Therefore, there is a problem that it is deformed and the positioning accuracy is lowered.

As a countermeasure against this, it is conceivable to increase the cross-sectional area of the guide rail, but in this case, the weight of the guide rail increases and the inertia becomes large. In particular, when performing positioning at high speed, rather There was a problem that the positioning accuracy was lowered. Therefore, in recent years, a proposal has been made to use alumina ceramic or the like as the material of the guide rail, but the present situation is that the study has not been sufficiently conducted.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a guide rail which is lightweight and can realize high positioning accuracy and the like.

[0007]

(1) The invention of claim 1 is a guide rail which is made of a sintered body of silicon nitride or sialon and has an inner surface on the side to be attached to the apparatus and an outer surface opposite to the guide rail. The gist of a guide rail is characterized in that at least one of the conditions that the flatness of the outer surface of the guide rail is 10 μm or less and the flatness of the side surface connected to the inner surface and the outer surface is 20 μm or less.

In the present invention, since the silicon nitride material or the sialon material is used as the material for forming the guide rail, it is lighter than the metallic guide rail, and the guide rail itself can operate at high speed. Even when moved, there is little deflection and there is an effect that the positioning accuracy of parts and the like is high. (Hereinafter, this effect is the same in each claim.) Particularly, in the present invention, the flatness of the outer surface of the guide rail is 10 μm.
m or less (preferably 5 μm or less), or the flatness of the side surface connecting to the inner surface and the outer surface is 20 μm or less (preferably 10 μm).
Since the condition of (m or less) is satisfied, there is little distortion such as bending in the guide rail, and therefore, there is an effect that the positioning accuracy is high when this guide rail is used.

Particularly, when both conditions are satisfied, there is an advantage that the positioning accuracy is higher. (2) The invention of claim 2 is a guide rail which is made of a sintered body of silicon nitride or sialon and has an inner surface on the side to be attached to the device and an outer surface opposite to the inner surface, and the parallelism of the inner surface to the outer surface of the guide rail. Is 10 μm or less,
A gist of a guide rail is characterized in that at least one of the conditions that the parallelism of the other side surface to the one side surface connected to the inner surface and the outer surface is 10 μm or less.

Particularly, in the present invention, the parallelism of the inner surface to the outer surface of the guide rail is 10 μm or less (preferably 5 μm).
Or) and the parallelism of one side to the other side is 1
Since the condition of 0 μm or less (preferably 5 μm or less) is satisfied, there is little distortion such as bending in the guide rail, and therefore, there is an effect that the positioning accuracy is high when this guide rail is used.

Particularly, when both conditions are satisfied, there is an advantage that the positioning accuracy is higher. (3) The invention of claim 3 is a guide rail which is made of a sintered body of silicon nitride or sialon and has an inner surface on the side to be attached to the device and an outer surface opposite to the inner surface, and the flatness of the outer surface of the guide rail is 10 μm. And at least one of the conditions that the flatness of the side surface connecting to the inner surface and the outer surface is 20 μm or less, and the parallelism of the inner surface to the outer surface of the guide rail is 10 μm or less, the inner surface and the outer surface are connected. The guide rail is characterized by satisfying at least one of the conditions that the parallelism of one side surface to the other side surface is 10 μm or less.

Since the present invention has the configurations of the first and second aspects of the invention, it has the advantages that both effects are achieved and the positioning accuracy is even higher. (4) The invention according to claim 4 is characterized in that the guide rail has a specific gravity of 3.5 or less and / or a Young's modulus of 300 GPa or more. Rails are the gist.

In the present invention, the specific gravity of the guide rail is 3.5.
The following is smaller and lighter than iron and the like, and has a Young's modulus of 300 GPa or more and is larger than iron and the like, so that it has a property of being hard to bend. When both the specific gravity and the Young's modulus are satisfied, the deflection is further reduced.

Therefore, even when the guide rail reciprocates at high speed, the positioning accuracy of the parts and the like held on the guide rail is high, which is preferable. (5) In the invention of claim 5, the distribution of the crystal grain size of the material (for example, silicon nitride) forming the guide rail is 1 to 2
5. A dual peak of a first peak in the range of μm and a second peak in the range of 4.5 to 5.5 μm, according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 4. The guide rails listed are the main points.

In the present invention, the distribution of the crystal grain size of, for example, silicon nitride forming the guide rail has a double peak. That is, the guide rail has a group of crystals having different particle size distributions. for that reason,
Even if a crack occurs in a part of the guide rail, the crack is hard to propagate, and therefore, the guide rail is less likely to be damaged.

(6) The invention according to claim 6 provides the guide rail according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the guide rail is used in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus. The present invention illustrates the application of the guide rail.

For example, by holding the semiconductor component at the tip of the guide rail and moving the guide rail itself, the semiconductor component can be moved to a desired position as the guide rail moves. Moreover, since the guide rail has little deflection even when reciprocating at high speed, the semiconductor component can be accurately arranged at a desired position.

In the above-mentioned invention, the flatness means
The flatness defined in JIS B0021 is shown, and the parallelism is defined as the parallelism defined in JIS B0021. Further, the above-mentioned silicon nitride-based and sialon-based sintered body is a sintered body containing silicon nitride as a main component, and other than that, a rare earth element, Al ₂
O ₃ , MgO, CeO ₂ , ZrO ₂ , TiO ₂ , AlN and the like can be added.

[0019]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Hereinafter, an example (embodiment) of an embodiment of a guide rail of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. (Embodiment) Here, a guide rail used in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus will be described as an example.

A) As shown in FIG. 1, the guide rail 5 of this embodiment is made of a sintered body of silicon nitride and has a specific gravity of 3.5 or less, for example 3.2, and a Young's modulus of 300 GPa or more. For example, 320 GPa, outer diameter is 7.5 mm long ×
It is a long, substantially square columnar member having a width of 18 mm and a length of 300 mm.

The guide rail 5 has through holes 19a to 19l.
It is provided with a small diameter side surface (generally referred to as 19) (A surface), an opposite large diameter side surface (B surface), and a C surface and a D surface which are side surfaces connected to the A surface and the B surface. The through hole 19 is for attaching a device for sucking a semiconductor component such as a chip, and the through hole 19 has a small diameter portion 21 communicating with the A surface and a B surface as shown in FIG. Is a two-stage hole composed of a large-diameter portion 23 having a large diameter communicating with

Particularly in this embodiment, the flatness of the B surface of the guide rail 5 is 10 μm or less (for example, 5 μm), and the flatness of the C surface and the D surface is 20 μm or less (for example, 10 μm). Further, the parallelism of the A surface with respect to the B surface of the guide rail 5 is 10 μm or less (for example, 5 μm), and the parallelism of the D surface with respect to the C surface is 10 μm or less (for example, 5 μm).

The guide rail 5 having the above-described structure is slidably held by a holding member 13, as shown in FIG.
The holding member 13 is a member having a substantially U-shaped cross section having a ball bearing 37 inside.
The slide rail 7 holds the guide rail 5 slidably by sliding on the guide grooves 39 provided on the C surface and the D surface of the guide rail 5.

B) Next, a method for manufacturing the guide rail 5 will be briefly described. First, silicon nitride raw material powder (average particle size 0.8 μm, specific surface area 11 m ² / g), alumina powder (average particle size 0.4 μm, specific surface area 10 m ² / g) and yttria powder (average particle size) as a sintering aid. Particle size 1.5 μm, specific surface area 10 m ²
/ G) was wet-mixed with pure water as a solvent to obtain sludge.

Next, the sludge is dried with a spray dryer to obtain a base powder (granulated powder) of about 100 μm.
Got Next, this granulated powder was press-molded with a mold to produce a molded body, and raw processing for forming the shape of the guide rail 5 was performed.

Next, the green product was sintered at 1700 ° C. by atmospheric pressure sintering and then hot isostatic pressing was performed at a pressure of 8 MPa and a temperature of 1750 ° C. to obtain a silicon nitride sintered body. Obtained. Next, a diamond grindstone (# 230) was used for the sintered body by using a surface grinder, and the A surface, B surface, C surface,
The surface D was ground to a predetermined size.

Next, the C-face and the D-face are grooved to form guide grooves 39, and then all corners are chamfered to complete the guide rail 5. c) As described above, in the guide rail 5 of the present embodiment, since a silicon nitride (or sialon) sintered body is used as the material forming the guide rail 5, the guide rail 5 is lighter than the metal guide rail. Therefore, even when the guide rail 5 itself moves at a high speed, there is little deflection, and the positioning accuracy of parts and the like is high.

Particularly, in this embodiment, B of the guide rail 5 is
The flatness of the surface is 10 μm or less, and the flatness of the C surface and the D surface is 20 μm or less. Furthermore, the parallelism of the A surface to the B surface of the guide rail 5 is 10 μm or less, and the parallelism of the D surface to the C surface is 10 μm or less. Therefore, since the guide rail 5 has little distortion such as bending, there is an effect that the positioning accuracy is high when the guide rail 5 is used.

D) Next, an example of an experiment conducted to confirm the characteristics and effects of this embodiment will be described. Positioning Accuracy of Guide Rails Samples having flatness and parallelism within the scope of the present invention were manufactured by the same method as in the above-described embodiment (invention product). A sample having flatness and parallelism outside the scope of the present invention was prepared (comparative example product).

Further, the above-mentioned guide rail sample was attached to an actual chip mounter, and electric equipment was actually attached to a circuit board by using the device. Then, the mounted state was photographed by a CCD camera, image processing was performed, and the positioning accuracy was visually determined based on the obtained image.

Specifically, using the samples of the respective guide rails, semiconductor component mounting experiments were conducted 10 times each. Then, visually confirm the state of being mounted at the target position, and in order from the highest ratio of being mounted at the target position, "◎◎", "◎", "○", "△" , “×”
Shows the evaluation. The results are shown in Tables 1 and 2 below.

[0032]

[Table 1]

As can be seen from Table 1, those having flatness (conditions 1 and 2) and parallelism (conditions 3 and 4) within the scope of the present invention are positioned in comparison with those which are not. It turns out that the accuracy is high.

[0034]

[Table 2]

As is apparent from Table 2, it is understood that the ones satisfying many conditions have higher positioning accuracy than those not satisfying the conditions. Distribution of Crystal Particle Size of Silicon Nitride Constituting Guide Rails The distribution of crystal particle size of silicon nitride of the guide rails of this example was measured.

Specifically, the distribution of the crystal grain size was measured by observing the sample of the guide rail with SEM at 2000 times in the inspection region of 50 μm × 50 μm. As a result, the first peak of the crystal grain size of silicon nitride is 1 to
1.2 μm within the range of 2 μm, the second peak is
It was 5 μm within the range of 4.5 to 5.5 μm, and it was found to have a double peak.

It is needless to say that the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments and can be carried out in various modes without departing from the gist of the present invention. For example, in the above embodiment, the guide rail made of silicon nitride was described, but sialon may be adopted as the material of the guide rail.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows a guide rail of an embodiment, (a) is a top view thereof, (b) is a side view thereof, (c) is a bottom view thereof,
(D) is an AA sectional view of (a).

FIG. 2 is an explanatory view showing a through hole provided in a guide rail of the embodiment in a broken manner.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory view showing a holding member for holding the guide rail of the embodiment in a cutaway manner.

[Explanation of symbols]

5 ... Guide rail 13 ... Holding member 19 (19a to 19l) ... through hole 21 ... Small diameter part 23 ... Large diameter part 37 ... Ball bearing 39 ... Guide groove

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    F term (reference) 3J104 AA03 AA23 AA34 AA65 AA69                       AA74 BA05 CA33 DA13 DA16                       EA10                 4G001 BA32 BA52 BB32 BB52 BD38                 5E313 AA01 DD01 EE01 EE22 FF21                       FG10                 5F031 CA13 GA60 MA35

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A guide rail made of a sintered body of silicon nitride or sialon and having an inner surface on the side to be attached to an apparatus and an outer surface opposite to the inner surface, wherein the outer surface of the guide rail has a flatness of 10 μm or less, And a flatness of the side surface connected to the outer surface is 20 μm or less, at least one of the conditions is satisfied. 2. A guide rail which is made of a sintered body of silicon nitride or sialon and has an inner surface on the side to be attached to the device and an outer surface opposite to the inner surface, wherein the parallelism of the inner surface to the outer surface of the guide rail is 10 μm.
A guide rail that satisfies at least one of the following conditions: m or less, and parallelism of the other side surface to one side surface connected to the inner surface and the outer surface is 10 μm or less. 3. A guide rail made of a sintered body of silicon nitride or sialon and having an inner surface on the side to be attached to a device and an outer surface opposite to the inner surface, wherein the outer surface of the guide rail has a flatness of 10 μm or less. And at least one of the conditions that the side surface connected to the outer surface has a flatness of 20 μm or less, and the parallelism of the inner surface to the outer surface of the guide rail is 10 μm.
At least one of the following conditions and the parallelism of the other side surface with respect to the one side surface connected to the inner surface and the outer surface is 10 μm or less. 4. The guide rail has a specific gravity of 3.5.
The guide rail according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the following and / or Young's modulus is 300 GPa or more. 5. The distribution of the crystal grain size of the material forming the guide rail has a first peak in the range of 1 to 2 μm and a second peak in the range of 4.5 to 5.5 μm. The above-mentioned 1 to 2 having a double peak of
Guide rail according to any one of 4. 6. The guide rail according to claim 1, wherein the guide rail is used in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus.
5. The guide rail according to any one of 5.