New Product: Bernoulli Gripper from Festo enables ‘contactless handling’

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  Festo Bernoulli Gripper

Product Briefing Outline: Festo has introduced a Bernoulli Gripper for transporting delicate work pieces such as solar cells and wafers. The most particular benefit of the gripper is the minimized air consumption which reduces the energy costs. Other essential aspects are little swinging power, high grip force, low-pressure applications and a constant area load.

Problem: During the production of solar cells the wafers have to be transported frequently and with high speed. Due to the fact that wafers are very thin and delicate the gripping is a critical point. Vacuum grippers due to their material use to leave shadows on the wafers which reduce the output of the solar cell. Meanwhile the suction has to be secure to resist forces of speed without breaking the delicate wafer.

Solution: The Festo Bernoulli offers a contactless suction force meanwhile a minimum contact of the wafer with the gripper insert provides the friction needed to guarantee high speed transport without losing the wafer. The gripper offers a variable fine-tuning of the air consumption and suction force so that the wafer does not suffer stress during transport. The gripper does not leave residuals on the surface which could influence the output of the solar cell. The gripper offers high suction forces (>30N on request) and produces at the same time low noise. The design can be easily customized on request to individual requirements and so optimized for each application. The optimized air consumption of the gripper increases the energy efficiency by reducing the energy costs.

Applications: Solar cell and wafer transport.

Platform: Festo offers complete solutions for wafer gripping and transport. The portfolio includes all the components needed from clean air preparation units and valves to handling solutions such as the high-speed H-Portal – customized to the application. 

Availability: Currently available.