Summary and Recommendations

This senior design project, conducted in partnership with ASML, aimed to characterize the bending stiffness of high-performance flat conductor cables used in lithography machines. These cables undergo extreme acceleration and are critical to the reliability of ASML’s semiconductor manufacturing systems. The team designed and built both static and dynamic test fixtures to measure bending stiffness accurately. Static testing involved a four-point bending setup, validated through simulation and physical experiments, while dynamic testing used a semicircular fixed-fixed cable configuration analyzed using Roark’s formulas.

Multiple design iterations led to the final dynamic test rig, which featured an aluminum and acrylic housing, a belt-driven linear actuator, guide rails for motion stability, limit switches for accurate position readings, and a force-sensing system integrated with a web-based Arduino controller. Experimental results showed consistent bending modulus values across trials within the dynamic stand, confirming the reliability of the setup. These values were compared to the ones measured prior in the static design and determined to be in the same order of magnitude.

The data collected provides ASML with valuable insights to improve cable performance by enabling more predictable deformation behavior, thereby minimizing wear and tear and enhancing system reliability under high-stress operating conditions.