Pick and Place of Sensitive Chips with Vacuum-Free Gecomer® Tools

To cope the lack of suitable pick and place methods for sensitive chips, we present a new process using a gripper tool from the company INNOCISE called Gecomer®. The tool, made of polymer pillars, is using Van der Waals forces to create adhesion between the gripping tool and the chip surface. Hence, the tool works without any vacuum. While placing, the Van der Waals interactions are reduced by buckling those pillars resulting in a decreased contact area. The challenge is to find the right parameters to avoid a re-gripping of the chip during the Gecomer®-movement away from the chip. In this paper we present results on the placement accuracy including the reproducibility compared to a standard vacuum tool for different process parameters. For that, we used a pick and place machine with built-in inspection camera to examine the deviation from the target position. It is revealed that both vacuum and polymer gripper have a similar deviation of approx. ±15 μm. Hence, the placing accuracy is not negatively influenced by the Gecomer® tool and depends only on the machine parameters. Furthermore, we analyze the surfaces of the chips, whether there are any residues of the gripping tool. In a first optical inspection, no damages or residues could be found. The new vacuum-free pick and place process has the potential to open new opportunities in the assembly of sensitive (MEMS)-chips regarding reproducibility, accuracy, and process throughput.