Novoto plays a key role in a successful launch of NexTStar Nanoscan G4 AOI equipment.

Jae Kim, President of Novoto managed 100% of mechanical design effort on the NexTStar Nanoscan G4 AOI (Automated Optical Inspection) product. Jae was a Mechanical Engineering Manager of NexTech Solutions for 1.5 years and continued to serve NexTech FAS (post merger) as a client after the departure. From the conceptual stage to shipping the finished product with a CE certification, its product success would not have been possible without Novoto. Jae personally designed ~75% of all designed parts in the tool. Jae also managed one NexTech mechanical engineer, one mechanical designer, and three other outside mechanical contractors to finish the product design, including full documentation. Jae worked with NexTech FAS' electrical, software, application engineering, manufacturing, optics scientist, and other support staff in a start-up environment, wearing many hats. For five months, Jae also served as a project manager overseeing the entire engineering team.

The Nanoscan product is capable of detecting surface sitting particles as small as 300nm. It is capable of detecting repeating and non-repeating pattern defects under both bright field and dark field strobed LED illumination. It also features proprietary selectable wavelength RGB bright field illumination, laser based auto-focus mechanism, and the state-of-the-art dark field illumination. It is composed of a state-of-the-art XY air bearing stage, 7 axis high accuracy ballscrew actuators with linear encoders, custom optics, low contact lapped chuck, lift pin mechanism for automated substrate hand-off, pneumatics, two separate custom electronic racks, and better than ISO Class 3 mini-environment with both passive and active ionizers. The racks also contain numerous custom designed electronic/pneumatic enclosures with cable/tube management system for ease of maintenance. The enclosure panels also feature Zero-Rattle vibration free panels with clever seal design as it houses very high magnification optics. It is capable of handling substrates of all size up to Gen 4 (730mm x 920mm).

"It has been a very interesting product development experience at NexTech FAS. We've had a lot of challenges that most companies don't experience. However, it feels really good to see a good product being shipped to a flexible display customer in Germany after almost two years of hard work. I've had probably the best/most experienced engineering support team in the industry and it would not have been possible without their help. I feel grateful of that fact,." said Jae Kim.

Novoto is excited about continued support of the product line and design of additional features that will make the product even more robust and in the future.