December 18, 2000

West·Bond’s C-Series was developed to bring forth improvements – the independently guided and locked axes – to the core X-Y-Z manipulator; but in deference to the popularity of the "A’s", the tool assembly of that series was retained. Now that the first transition away from the finally discontinued A-Series has been made, and experience has been gained with the revolutionary wire clamps of the E-Series, there is a new imperative to bring that concept across to the wire bonders of the C-Series. To distinguish the new models, especially during this next transition, numbers can remain and only the series letter will be changed. With complete foresight, we have preserved the letter "D" for just this purpose.

The new wire bond models -- angled wedge, deep access wedge, and ball bond – get entirely new tool assemblies with new transducers, and with mounts for the new clamps and an on-board motor to drive them. The new transducers have flange mounts that, together with longer bond tools, provide greater work clearance. The wire clamps are air-opened and spring-closed, have self-contained closure-pivots, and have a common forward-pivot to direct motion for both angled and vertical feed action. Motor drive is away from the bond tool, with spring return. All motion settings are configured in software and are retained in non-volatile memory. The wedge bond models consolidate into one inherently convertible machine, enabled by the simple clamp exchange about the forward-pivot. The separate ball bond model uses the vertical feed clamps and gets the swing-under electronic torch from B- and E-Series.

Along with the tool assembly, the manipulator follower assembly is improved by a new design of the Y-Slide member. This will be passed as well to all remaining models of the C-Series.

Now, so long as your work piece to be wire bonded is of limited size, your choice between D- and E-Series resolves basically to the choice of a pivoted mechanism or an orthogonal one. Hard, huh?

The angled-wedge configuration is shown below.

Click here to see West·Bond "D" Series Photos.


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Fax: 714.978.0431

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