One specific area where capacitance systems excel is high resolution focusing of complex lens systems such as those found in atomic force microscopes, vision inspection machines and photolithography tools.

In a multi-million dollar photolithography tool, high accuracy, nanometer resolution and maximum thermal stability are absolutely critical to maintain proper focus and obtain integrated circuit line widths as small as 45 nanometers. Additionally, most systems demand low power consumption and maximum heat dissipation to eliminate any adverse affects from temperature gradients. MTI’s Application and Design team developed a multi-channel, capacitance based solution featuring a measurement accuracy of 0.1 nanometers.

MTII designed the probe amplifier for direct integration into the customer’s control system utilizing the existing power supply and system bus. Special design consideration was given to thermal stability and long term electronic drift to provide years of fault free operation in a production environment.