News Briefs

Omron Electronics has announced record industrial-automation sales growth for its fiscal year ending March 31, 2005, resulting from a reorganization, product innovation, and focus on key markets, including machine-vision technologies tailored to applications areas ranging from food and beverages to semiconductors. A just-announced partner program that bundles Omron technologies with nine other automation companies' offerings are among ways the company plans to double its North American revenue within two years, according to Craig Bauer, president and COO of Omron Electronics, in comments during a two-day media event held at the company's Schaumburg, IL, headquarters June 29–30.

During the event, Omron partners demonstrated their offerings, and Omron introduced new products, including the $5840 F210-ETN Ethernet vision-sensor controller. The F210 has onboard storage for compressed inspection images, which can be streamed via Ethernet to a remote PC or laptop for analysis and long-term storage without interfering with ongoing production output. The controller features parallel processors for measurement and communication functions, enabling continued inspection without interruption while processing and sending data. Access from a remote location using Omron's Vision Composer Net software lets users start or stop sensing and set or change scan parameters without the need to directly access onboard controls. www.omron.com/oei.

To help the semiconductor industry measure 300-mm wafers, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed an infrared instrument that measures differences in thickness across a 300-mm wafer. The researchers hope the tool will eventually allow them to establish a new calibration service for "master wafers" used in the industry to measure wafer thickness.

The Improved Infrared Interferometer (IR³) uses intersecting waves of light to create interference patterns, which in turn can be used as a ruler to measure nanoscale dimensions. While most interferometers use red laser light, the IR³ uses infrared laser light. The longer wavelengths of infrared light pass through a silicon wafer, allowing the IR³ to illuminate both the top and bottom of a wafer and produce a detailed spatial map of differences in thickness in one pass. Changes in color within the spatial map represent changes in wafer thickness.

The NIST researchers make precision measurements of the wafer's index of refraction—the amount that light is "bent" as it passes through the silicon—as a critical step in correctly interpreting the interference patterns. Increased precision in the refractive index measurement will be necessary before absolute measurements of thickness rather than relative differences will be possible with the new instrument.

The NIST researchers were expecting to present their findings at the American Society for Precision Engineering (ASPE) Summer Topical Meeting on Precision Interferometric Metrology in late July. www.nist.gov.

Agilent Technologies recently announced that it has made an equity investment in Asylum Research (Santa Barbara, CA) and that its Nanotechnology Measurements Division (NMD) will collaborate with Asylum on technologies for use in nanotechnology measurements. Asylum Research is a manufacturer of atomic force microscopes (AFMs), which are used to measure the shape and properties of materials at the nanometer scale.

The agreement will enable Agilent to develop new features for AFMs as well as gain more knowledge about AFM customer needs. "The joint development agreement underscores our commitment to new technologies and markets," said Bob Burns, VP and GM of Agilent's NMD. "The AFM market is a significant portion of the $1 billion market for nanotechnology measurement tools, with the segment growing at close to 20 percent a year." www.agilent.com.

Featuring a loop design to facilitate the connection of test probes to PCBs, the TP-107 series of low-profile, surface-mount printed-circuit board test points are fully compliant with the European Union directive "Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment" (RoHS). Their proprietary forming process, which consists of forming the flat wire design in a spiral wrap at the mounting base, effectively doubles the surface area of the mounting base to enable a PCB solder connection that can withstand 18 lbs of force. A loop design provides a secure connection for miniature spring-loaded clips, probes, and hooks.

The test points offer a 0.090-in. (2.29 mm) profile. Specifications include a 2-A current rating and a –55°C to +125°C operating temperature. The parts feature a matte tin over nickel finish and are manufactured using a 0.015x0.040-in. phosphor bronze, spring-tempered, flat-wire alloy.

Designed for automatic insertion by industry-standard pick-and-place equipment and reflow soldering, the test points are supplied on 12-mm-wide, 4-mm-pitch, conductive polycarbonate tape. The units may be ordered on either 7-in., 1000-piece reels or 13-in., 5000-piece reels.

Price: $0.078 each in quantities of 1000. Components Corp., componentscorp.com/details/tp107.html.

LTX's 80-slot Fusion EX test system offers four times as many instrument channels as the vendor's Fusion CX. The Fusion EX's 80 universal instrument slots accommodate existing Fusion platform instruments, which offer a limited number of instrument channels per card to provide fine instrument-channel granularity to allow incremental enhancements in capabilities. The EX provides full functional test capabilities and features the built-in support necessary for structural test, including digital performance up to 200 MHz (including embedded-memory test and time-measurement-per-pin capabilities). A Serdes test option operates to 12 Gbps. The Fusion EX also offers DFT support through independent scan-per-pin capability, and it provides a seamless interface to third-party BIST tools with fully integrated diagnostic support.

In addition, Fusion EX uses the same mixed-signal instrument set as the Fusion CX and Fusion DX configurations, including multiple synthesizers and digitizers and a full suite of DC and power test options. The EX also provides program compatibility through LTX's enVision device-oriented programming environment, which provides debug tools, encapsulation of test objects to support reuse of test intellectual property, and transparent multisite capabilities.

Price for typical configurations: $500,000 to $800,000. LTX, www.ltx.com.

EOS/ESD Symposium, September 11–16, Anaheim, CA. Sponsored by ESD Association. www.esda.org.

Autotestcon, September 26–29, Orlando, FL. Sponsored by IEEE. www.autotestcon.com .

International Robots & Vision Show, September 27–29, Rosemont, IL. Sponsored by Automated Imaging Association and Robotic Industries Association. www.machinevisiononline.org.

To learn about other conferences, courses, and calls for papers, visit www.tmworld.com/events.