Material or article handling – Apparatus for charging a load holding or supporting element... – Condition responsive control of transporting means
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-16
2002-04-09
Fischetti, Joseph A. (Department: 2167)
Material or article handling
Apparatus for charging a load holding or supporting element...
Condition responsive control of transporting means
C414S225010, C414S404000, C414S816000, C414S936000, C414S937000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06368040
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transporting apparatus and a transporting method, by which substrates to be processed, such as semiconductor wafers and glass substrates for a LCD (liquid crystal display) unit etc., are successively conveyed for an appropriate process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, in a manufacturing process for producing semiconductor devices, there is widely adopted a substrate processing apparatus which successively transports the substrates to be processed, such as semiconductor wafers and LCD glass substrates etc.(referred to “substrates” hereinafter), to a cleaning bath filled up with the chemicals, the rinsing liquids etc. or a drying section.
In order to allow the above substrate processing apparatus to clean a plurality (e.g. 50 pcs.) of wafers or the like effectively, it has been that in the arrangement where a wafer delivery section is provided between a loading and unloading section and a processing section for the wafers etc., a method of transporting the plural wafers, which are vertically arranged at predetermined intervals, by a wafer delivering unit arranged in the wafer delivery section, consequently loading the wafers into respective processing units and also unloading the wafers from the processing units by the wafer delivering unit is preferable.
Now, the substrate processing apparatus of this kind has a problem that when the unprocessed and processed wafers are carried by the identical delivering unit, then contaminants, such as particles, which have been sticking to the unprocessed wafers, are transferred to the processed wafers through the intermediary of a wafer holding part of the wafer delivery unit, so that the processed wafers are subjected to contamination unfortunately. In order to solve this problem, it is thought that two different wafer delivering units take charges of carrying the unprocessed wafers and carrying the processed wafers, respectively. However, such a provision of two delivering units would cause the apparatus to be large-sized.
In order to solve the above problem, there is known a substrate processing apparatus where the wafer holding part of the wafer delivering unit is constituted by a first holding part consisting of two holding members for respectively holding the wafers etc. vertically and a second holding part of three holding members and additionally, the first and second holding parts are adapted so as to elevate relatively to each other, whereby the wafers etc. can be held by the raised one of the first and second holding parts. (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-163670)
In the above-mentioned apparatus, however, there are two different situations to hold the unprocessed wafers etc. and hold the processed wafers etc. since the first holding part does carry each wafer at two inner points of both sides of the wafer, while the second holding part carries each wafer at three points consisting of the bottom center and both sides of the wafer. Thus, two different holding situations in the identical wafer delivering unit causes the stability in holding the wafers to be influenced. Especially, at the first holding part to hold each wafer at two inner points of both sides of the wafer, there exists a problem to produce particles because of “shaky” wafers and mutual contacts of wafers in transportation, thereby causing the reduction of product yield. Although it is thought to expand each width of the holding members in order to solve the problem, it also means to increase the contact area with the wafers, thereby increasing the possibility of producing the particles.
Now, it should be noted that, with the finer and large-scale integration and high-productivity required for the semiconductor devices in recent years, the wafers are showing a tendency to increase the diameter, for example, from 8 inches wafer to 12 inches wafer.
Under such a situation, since the size and weight of the wafer are also increased, the wafers have to be horizontally accommodated in the carrier in loading to or unloading them from the processing units, while such a horizontal arrangement has to be changed into the vertical arrangement in processing them in the processing units. However, if the posture of the wafer is changed from the horizontal arrangement to the vertical arrangement together with the carrier, there arise problems that the positional shifting of the wafers is caused and the particles are produced in transportation, so that the product yield is lowered.
Accordingly, we, inventors have developed a substrate transporting apparatus in which the horizontal arrangement of the wafers is changed to the vertical arrangement before processing the wafers, while the vertical arrangement of the wafers is changed to the horizontal arrangement after processing the wafers, as a result of our diligent investigation. (see Japanese Patent Application No. 9-116571) According to the developed substrate transporting apparatus, it is possible to process the substrates after changing the posture of substrates horizontally accommodated in a container into the vertical arrangement and also accommodate the substrates into the container after changing the posture of processed substrates to the horizontal arrangement.
Nevertheless, when changing the posture of the unprocessed and processed wafers by identical posture changing means, there still remains the problem that the particles sticking in carrying the unprocessed wafers stick to the processed wafers again, so that the wafers are contaminated together with the reduction in product yield. Therefore, it has been necessary to provide the posture changing means for the unprocessed wafers on the input side and the posture changing means for the processed wafers on the output side, respectively.
Also in this case, however, such a provision of two posture changing means would cause the apparatus to be large-sized. Furthermore, since conveyer means and the respective processing units are further large-sized with the above-mentioned tendency to increase the diameter of wafers, the problem of reducing the throughput of the apparatus arises.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a substrate transporting apparatus which is small-sized to improve the throughput and capable of carrying the unprocessed substrates and the processed substrates under the same holding condition thereby to hold the substrates stably and improve the product yield.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a substrate transporting method by which the substrate transporting apparatus can be smallsized thereby to improve the throughput and the product yield.
As a first feature of the present invention, the above-mentioned objects described above can be accomplished by a substrate transporting apparatus comprising:
a substrate loading and unloading section for loading and unloading a plurality of substrates;
a substrate processing section for applying a designated treatment on the substrates;
a substrate delivery section for delivering the substrates from the substrate loading and unloading section to the substrate processing section and vice versa, the substrate delivery section having substrate holding means for holding the substrates delivered in a row;
substrate transporting means for transporting the substrates between the substrate processing section and the substrate delivery section; and
substrate spacing means for vertically holding the substrates lined up at predetermined intervals, the substrate spacing means being positioned between the substrate holding means and the substrate transporting means,
wherein the substrate spacing means includes a first holding part for holding the substrates and a second holding part for holding the substrates;
the first holding part has a lower-part supporting member formed with a plurality of holding grooves lined up, the holding grooves respectively engaging with bottom portions of the substrates when holding the su
Honda Kazuyuki
Kuroda Osamu
Yamahata Hiroshi
Yamasaki Katuki
Fischetti Joseph A.
Morrison & Foerster / LLP
Tokyo Electron Limited
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