PIglide A-110 Stage Targets Nanometer-Scale Precision

The A-110 linear stage utilizes an ironless brushless motor for direct-drive actuation, effectively bypassing the cogging forces found in conventional iron-core motors. Because the moving carriage is suspended on a thin film of air, the assembly avoids the stick-slip behavior common to recirculating ball bearings. This configuration ensures consistent performance even when subjected to offset or asymmetric loads of up to 10 kg, maintaining structural stiffness without sacrificing motion fluidity.

Engineers designed the unit to address the parasitic motion errors—such as pitch, yaw, and lateral deviations—that often compromise scanning accuracy. With travel ranges spanning 50 mm to 400 mm, the stage achieves velocities reaching 1 m/s and accelerations up to 20 m/s². The system offers calibrated positioning accuracy of ±0.5 µm and encoder resolutions as fine as 1 nanometer. Because the design requires no lubrication and generates negligible particulate matter, it is suited for clean-room environments like wafer inspection and photomask handling, where even microscopic debris can trigger process failures.