A LITTLE COMPANY called PI or Physik Instrumente had some seriously precise toys to show off at Semicon West. If you need really delicate positioning, motors or six actuator platforms, look no further.

This little guy is called the Hexapod, and it is a hugely precise platform that can position the top to within about 0.1 microns.

Not only precise, fast too

It has six degrees of movement and twist along all three axis, so you can not only position your flowerpot to microscopic scales, you can turn it with the same accuracy.

When microns count...

Next up, Pi had something called the Piezo Stage, which is a stable platform on the outside and a movable one on the inside. There are piezo electric motors that can move the inner platform relative to the outer one in a very precise way.

How precise? The accuracy is quoted as less than 1nm, so that should be enough for most people. The range of the platform is about 1/10th of a mm, so if your electronics are good, you just need to get whatever it is that close, and the platform can do the rest for you, sensors and chips willing.

The small one is higher tech

The last thing PI had is a range of parts really, linear piezo motors. These are little motors that can move a rod back and forth with a great deal of speed and accuracy. They work because a piezo block has a known resonance frequency, and when you apply power to it, you know how fast it moves.

The piezo block turns a motor, again in a set way, so you just have to control the time power is sent to it to control the distance. You can get them to move at up to 400mm/sec, or you can make them very small. The above one is an example of how small they go, my cell phone dwarfs it. µ