An automated clamping system for securing a work piece to the table of a machine tool. The clamping system automatically retracts away from the work piece as the material manipulating device moves into the area of each clamp. This allows manipulation of the work piece without stopping to move the clamp to a new location so that the clamp does not interfere with the metal manipulating device. A typical embodiment is the use of the system on a milling machine. The clamping system could be used with milling machines (both manual and computer controlled), routers, water jet cutters, laser cutters, flame cutters, and many other types of cutting machines.
Wafer Reader Including A Mirror Assembly For Reading Wafer Scribes Without Displacing Wafers
A wafer reader for reading scribes from the surface of semiconductor wafers uses a mirror assembly with a series of stationary mirrors spaced apart so that the mirrors can be inserted between wafers in a cassette. The mirror assembly enables a reader unit to read each scribe without displacing the wafer that it is reading or the adjacent wafers. The reader unit can include a single camera that moves relative to a stationary cassette assembly for holding a cassette or a moving cassette the moves past a fixed reading position of a single, stationary camera. Alternatively, the reader unit can include more than one stationary camera, each capable of reading more than one wafer in a cassette. The reader can use either bright or dark field lighting. In either case, each mirror in the mirror assembly re-directs light depicting a wafer scribe from the surface of an adjacent wafer to the camera assembly.
A fastener retainer may include a surface, a hook integrated into the surface, and a fastener hole defined in the surface below the hook. A substrate may include a hook extending out of and integrated into a first side of the substrate, a screw hole defined through the substrate, and a countersink formed at least equal to the height of the hook on the first side of the substrate