Apparatus for making laminated electrical and electronic devices

An apparatus for making a laminated electrical or electronic device from tape coated on one side with a ceramic material, comprising:

• an inspection station for inspecting the quality of printing at a series of indexed segments on a ceramic coated, continuous tape;
• a stack and tack station at which sequential segments of the continuous tape are cut from the tape and stacked on top of each other to form a stack having a selected number of layers;
• a lamination station in which the stacked layers are laminated together;
• a cutting station at which the stack is cut into a plurality of individual chips;
• a tape feed mechanism for indexing the continuous trade sequentially through the inspection station and the stack and tack station such that successive segments of the continuous tape are sequentially aligned at the respective stations;
• a controller for controlling operation of the tape feed mechanism and stack and tack station;
• the stack and tack station further including a support frame, a y-platform movably mounted on the support frame for movement in a y-direction, a y-direction actuator for moving the y-platform back and forth in the y-direction, an x-platform movably mounted on the y-platform for movement back and forth in an x-direction perpendicular to the y-direction, an x-actuator for driving the x-platform back and forth in the x-direction, a turntable rotatable mounted on the x-platform, a .theta.-actuator for rotating the turntable, and the stacking head being movably mounted on the turntable for movement in a z-direction perpendicular to the x- and y-directions;
• and
• at least two upwardly directed cameras mounted in the stacking head facing an indexed tape segment in a stacking position in the stack and tack station, the output of said cameras being linked to said controller, and said controller comprising means for controlling said x-, y- and .theta.-actuators in response to the output of said cameras to align a stack of ceramic layers on the stacking head at a predetermined orientation and position with respect to the indexed tape segment for forming next layer to be applied to the stack.