Development of an Annular-Shaped Bernoulli Gripper for Contactless Gripping of Large-Size Silicon Wafer

Abstract

Silicone wafer gripping and transportation have been widely utilized in wafer fabrication process, such as chemical mechanical polishing, grinding, epitaxial growth, etc. This paper develops a novel annular-shaped gripper based on Bernoulli effects with the aim of contactless gripping of large size and thin silicon wafer. The structural design and working principle of this annular-shaped Bernoulli gripper are presented. A computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model is established to study the adsorption performance of the gripper when gripping an 8-inch silicon wafer. Numerical simulation results showed that the gripper can generate an annular-shaped pressure distribution to adsorb the silicon wafer which can reduce the wafer's deformation. Then, the Bernoulli gripper was fabricated, and the 8-inch silicon wafer's gripping experiments demonstrated that the gripper has generally low suction curve gradient. Thus, the developed annular-shaped Bernoulli gripper could be utilized for contactless gripping and transportation of large-size and thin silicon wafers in potential industrial applications.