Gained Schedule Controlled Hot Plate

The hot plate is heated with two Kapton KH flexible heaters made by Omegalux. One Kapton heater is 12'' x 10'' and the other is 10'' x 10''. The smaller heater was purchased only because of the limited availability of the larger heater. The combined heat output of the two heaters is 2200 Watts (10 Watts/ in^2). The Kapton heaters are placed between two 12'' x 12'' x 1/16'' copper plates. Omegatherm 201 thermal paste was used to provide a conductive heat transfer pathway between the heaters and the conductive surface. The heaters have a high heat output so a good heat transfer pathway is needed to prevent the Kapton from melting and damaging the heat source.
The copper plates containing the heating source were placed on a 12'' x 12'' x 1/2'' aluminum base. The aluminum base provides support for the heating source and contains channels for a cooling fluid. A circulating fluid (water) is used to cool the hot plate after each post-application bake cycle. The cooling channel has a spiral trajectory with a 1/4'' x 1/4'' cross sectional area. The cooling fluid from a tap water facet enters the middle of the bottom surface of the aluminum base through a 1/4 '' ID flexible rubber tubing. The cooling water exits at the end of spiral channel through the same size of tubing and drains in a local sink. After the hot plate is cooled with water, air is used to remove the water from the channel inside of the aluminum channel. The water needs to be removed from the chill plate before the plate can be heated for the next run.
Temperature Process Control
The hot plate temperature control scheme is designed to model the temperature trajectory of the post-application bake temperature profile used by UL Coat for photoresist baking. The control scheme uses a technique called gain scheduling that follows a series of multiple temperature set points on a trajectory. The PID (proportional/ integral/ derivative) parameters at each set point are adjusted to control the heater to heat aggressively during high temperature ramping periods and to heat slowly during the plateauing temperature regions. This control scheme should be capable of following Hoya's temperature trajectory within 1 șC. However, gain scheduling requires that the PID parameters be readjusted for new trajectories or external temperature changes.