JP2956295B2 - Laser marking device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a laser marking apparatus, and more particularly to a method of generating a font pattern of a laser marking apparatus for marking a figure including characters, symbols and the like by using a laser.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When drawing a figure including a character or a symbol made up of dots on a workpiece such as a semiconductor wafer by using a laser pulse, one font pattern data is prepared for one figure.

For example, when drawing a character, a font pattern of a dot matrix (5 × 9 dot matrix) as shown in FIG. 2A is formed, and xy coordinates of each dot of the pattern are used as coordinate data. Prepare

[0004] The character E is drawn on the object to be marked by irradiating a laser pulse at each coordinate position of the coordinate data with one laser pulse as one dot of a figure.

FIG. 1A shows an example of a font pattern composed of coordinate data based on a dot matrix, while FIG. 1B shows an example of a linked font pattern. This connected font pattern also basically consists of a series of dots, and is thus formed by the basic dot position coordinate data as in FIG. In this case, the dot diameter matches the pulse diameter P of the laser pulse.

In such conventional font pattern data, when it is desired to change the marking line width or dot diameter, laser sweep for marking shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B is performed once, and then the line width is changed. The sweep is repeated several times by shifting the coordinates of the position of the sweep start point in accordance with the dot diameter.

As described above, it is necessary to increase or decrease the amount of coordinate data to be prepared according to the required line width and dot diameter.
Further, there is a disadvantage that the generation process and the generation time of the font pattern also differ depending on the required line width and dot diameter.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a laser marking apparatus capable of maintaining a constant data amount regardless of a line width and a dot diameter, and a constant generation process and generation time of a font pattern. It is.

[0009]

According to the present invention, a character consisting of dots,
A laser marking device for marking a graphic including a symbol or the like, and means for storing coordinate data indicating the coordinates of each dot as a basis for configuring the graphic data,
Means for storing shift amounts ax and bx each consisting of a shift amount in the x direction and y direction and the number of shift dots in the x direction and y direction for each of the dots, and a laser beam according to the coordinate data and the shift data Means for performing laser marking while controlling laser pulse irradiation.
The shift data uses the dot diameter D as a variable.
, P is the diameter of the laser pulse, nx and ny are x,
Each shift amount in the y direction (known number set in advance)
If, ax = (D-P) ÷ (nx -1) bx = (D-P) ÷ (ny -1) and the possible laser marking apparatus according to claim is obtained. Further, according to the present invention, a character or symbol composed of dots
With a laser marking device for marking figures including
And each of the basics for composing the graphic data.
Means for storing coordinate data indicating the coordinates of the dot,
X and y shifts for each of the dots and x
Shift data a consisting of the number of shift dots in the y and y directions
means for storing x and bx, and shifting the coordinate data
Irradiation control of laser pulse by laser light according to data
Means for making laser marking while controlling
The shift data is x, y composed of the dots.
When the line widths Wx and Wy in the directions are variables, P
The diameter of the user pulse, nx and ny, are shifted in the x and y directions.
Assuming that (predetermined known number), ax = (Wx-P) ÷ (nx-1) bx = (Wy-P) (ny-1) is obtained.
You.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of font pattern data used in an embodiment of the present invention. As in the case of FIG. 2A, this is an example of E marking of a 5 × 9 dot matrix figure. The same applies to other than 5 × 9 and E.

First, referring to FIG. 1A, the pattern of the present embodiment has a dot diameter (equal to the laser pulse diameter P in this example) of the dot pattern of FIG. This shows an example of data in the case of performing the above.

Data corresponding to the conventional font pattern data is coordinate data indicating the position coordinates of 5.times.9 dots (basic dots) of black circles. In addition, a shift amount in the x direction corresponding to each basic dot is provided. ax and the number of shifted dots nx thereof, and the shift data by the amount of shift by in the y direction by and the number of shifted dots ny.

In the example shown, since D = 2P, 5 × 9
For all = 45 basic dots, the number of shifted dots nx and ny in the x and y directions are both 2 and the amounts of shift ax and by in the x and y directions are both P.

In the above example, D = 2P. In general, the shift amounts ax and by are as follows: ax = (D−P) ÷ (nx−1) (1) by = (D−P) ) ÷ (ny −1)... (2) Here, the number of shift dots nx and ny is
It is determined in advance, and is a known number.

In this example, the dot diameter D is the same pattern in all portions of the character E. In this case, the shift data (ax, by) is applied to all 45 basic dots.
, Nx, ny) are the same. However, when the dot diameter D is changed only in a certain part from the others, the shift data (a
x, by, nx, ny) change accordingly, and in particular ax
, By are data obtained by the equations (1) and (2).

FIGS. 1B and 1C show font pattern data according to another embodiment of the present invention, and show a partially enlarged view of a character E. FIG. In this example, a case of a connected font pattern is shown, where a black circle is a basic dot and a white circle is a dot based on shift data.

FIGS. 2B and 2C show a line width Wx in the x direction.
And the line width Wy in the y direction are all different.

In this case, the shift amounts ax,
by is ax = (Wx-P) ÷ (nx-1) (3) by = (Wy-P) ÷ (ny-1) in accordance with the required line widths Wx and Wy. It is calculated by (4). Here, the numbers of shift dots nx and ny are determined in advance and are known numbers.

The values of a and b in the figure are the line widths Wx and Wx, respectively.
y is a fixed value irrelevant to the pulse diameter P and the pitch of the basic dot. This fixed value a, b is considered as a shift amount for shifting the basic dot. It can be treated the same as ax and by.

As described above, in addition to the coordinate data of the basic dots, the shift data (ax,
By providing (by, nx, ny) or (a, b, nx, ny), laser marking patterns of various dot diameters and line widths can be obtained.

By using the coordinate data of these basic dots and the shift data corresponding to each basic dot, FIG.
Marking by the font patterns (A) to (C) can be realized, and its system block is shown in FIG. 3 and its operation processing flow is shown in FIG. 4, respectively.

In FIG. 3, a control unit 1 is a CPU for controlling the operation of the entire laser marking apparatus. The control unit 1 operates in accordance with coordinate data 2 of basic dots of a figure to be marked and shift data 3 corresponding to these basic dots. And laser marking on the wafer 7.

It is assumed that the coordinate data 2 and the shift data 3 of these basic dots are written in a storage means such as a memory in advance, and the shift amounts ax and by in the shift data are (1) to (4). If the shift numbers nx and ny are stored in advance in the memory for each dot as the shift data, the CPU 1 can calculate ax and by. The beam scanner control unit 4 drives the beam scanner optical system unit 6 under the control of the CPU 1 to control the position of the laser beam 9 on the wafer 7.

The laser oscillator 5 turns on and off the laser beam under the control of the CPU 1, and the wafer transfer mechanism 8 transfers the wafer 7.

The operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the operation flow of FIG. First, a line width Wx, Wy or a dot diameter P is designated (step 39). Then, the shift amounts ax and by in the x and y directions are calculated. (Step 4
0). The coordinate data of the first dot of the first character is set as the current coordinates (x ', y') (steps 43 and 45). Then, a command is issued from the CPU 1 to the beam scanner control unit 4 to drive the beam scanner optical system 6.

After the positioning of the scanner optical system 6 is completed, one or several shots of the laser beam 9 are emitted from the laser oscillator 5 onto the wafer 7 (step 47).

Next, a value obtained by adding the shift amount ax of the shift data in the x direction to the current coordinate x 'is set as a new current coordinate x' (step 48), and the current coordinate (x ', x',
The scanner optical system 6 is moved to y ') to execute marking. At this time, if the shift amount is a fixed value, ax is a
Becomes This work is performed by shifting the number of pulses j in the x direction of the data.
(= Nx) times. (Step 46).

After the number of pulses j in the x direction is completed, the current coordinate y 'plus the shift amount by (by a fixed value b) of the shift data in the y direction is set as a new current coordinate y' (step S1). 49), the above processing steps 45 to 45
Execute 48. This operation is repeated by the number of pulses i (= ny) in the y direction of the shift data (step 4).
4).

By repeating the above processing steps 43 to 49 by the coordinate data amount of the basic dot of the character to be marked (step 42), the marking of one character is completed. When there are a plurality of marking characters, the same processing steps 42 to 49 are repeated for the number of marking characters (step 41).

Incidentally, in order to mark a figure (only a black circle in FIG. 1 or a figure in FIG. 2) using only the basic coordinate data, each value of the shift data is represented by nx = 1, ny = 1, ax = 0, b
This can be realized by setting y = 0.

By specifying and adding shift data as needed to the basic dot coordinate data of each symbol or character, patterns such as those shown in FIGS. 1A to 1C can be generated. By simply resetting only the numerical value of the shift data according to the dot diameter and line width of the dot, the conventional dot coordinate data can be used.

[0033]

As described above, according to the present invention, coordinate data of basic dots and shift data corresponding to all of the basic dots are prepared, and only this shift data is made variable. Thus, it is possible to generate a font pattern having a desired dot diameter and line width, and there is an effect that the number of font pattern data and the generation time do not change depending on the dot diameter and line width.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of generation of a dot matrix font pattern according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a dot matrix font pattern based on basic coordinate data.

FIG. 3 is a system block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 CPU 2 Basic dot coordinate data 3 Shift data 4 Beam scanner control unit 5 Laser oscillator 6 Beam scanner optical system unit 7 Wafer 8 Wafer transfer mechanism unit

Continuation of the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) B41J 2/44 B23K 26/00 B41J 2/485

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A laser marking apparatus for marking a figure including characters, symbols, etc., composed of dots, means for storing coordinate data indicating coordinates of each dot as a basis for forming the figure data, Means for storing shift amounts ax and bx each consisting of a shift amount in the x direction and y direction and the number of shift dots in the x direction and y direction for each of the dots, and a laser beam according to the coordinate data and the shift data look including a means for forming the laser marking while performing irradiation control of the laser pulse, the shift data
When the dot diameter D is a variable, P
The diameter of the user pulse, nx and ny, are shifted in the x and y directions.
A laser marking apparatus characterized in that ax = (D−P) x (nx−1) bx = (D−P) ÷ (ny−1) , where (predetermined known number) . 2. A figure including characters, symbols, etc., composed of dots.
A laser marking device for marking, wherein the
Coordinates of each dot as the basis for composing graphic data
Means for storing coordinate data indicating
And the amount of shift in the x and y directions with respect to
The shift data ax and bx consisting of the shift dot number
Storage means, and the coordinate data and the shift data.
While controlling the irradiation of laser pulse by laser light
Means for performing laser marking,
Is the line width in the x and y directions constituted by the dots.
When Wx and Wy are variables, P is the laser pulse
The diameters, nx and ny, are shifted in the x and y directions (set in advance).
Known number) ax = (Wx-P) ÷ (nx-1) BX = (Wy-P) ÷ (ny-1) A laser marking device, characterized in that: