Conveyors: power-driven – With means to facilitate working – treating – or inspecting... – Means to transfer a load back and forth between the mainline...
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-16
2001-11-20
Bidwell, James R. (Department: 3651)
Conveyors: power-driven
With means to facilitate working, treating, or inspecting...
Means to transfer a load back and forth between the mainline...
C414S937000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06318538
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for treatment of a substrate with which different substrates, such as for example, semiconductor devices, printed boards, LCD substrates or the like can be treated. The invention, furthermore, relates to a device for treatment of a substrate in which, after removing a workpiece from a cassette by a workpiece transport device and after a first treatment, such as for example rough alignment or the like, a second treatment, for example, exposure or the like, is performed, and the already treated workpiece is automatically transported to the cassette.
2. Description of Related Art
In a device for working and treatment of a workpiece, such as a semiconductor wafer or the like, transporting the workpiece using a robot as the transport device, which is shown, for example, in published Japanese patent application HEI 8-274140, is known.
In one such robot, a device is used in which dust formation when driving is suppressed as much as possible. It is used in a process in which there is a demand for high cleanliness.
FIG. 14
shows one example of the above described robot.
In the figure, a robot RA has a rotary part RA
20
which is pivotally supported on a base RA
10
, first arms RA
3
, RA
3
′ which turn on the rotary part RA
20
, second arms RA
5
, RA
5
′ which are pivotally installed on the first joints RA
4
, RA
4
′ in the first arms RA
3
, RA
3
′, and workpiece holding arms RA
1
, RA
1
′ which are pivotally installed on the second joints RA
6
, RA
6
′ in the second arms RA
5
, RA
5
′. On the tips of the workpiece holding arms RA
1
, RA
1
′ which are located at the top and bottom, there are workpiece holding parts RA
7
, RA
7
′ which securely hold a workpiece by vacuum Suction or the like.
In the second arms RA
5
, RA
5
′, there are recess components RA
8
, RA
8
′ for preventing mutual interference of the arms which are attached in the workpiece holding arms RA
1
, RA
1
′. The workpiece holding arms RA
1
, RA
1
′ are pivotally installed in the second alms RA
5
, RA
5
′ via the recess components RA
8
, RAS
8
′.
The workpiece holding arms RA
1
, RA
1
′ each move independently of one another in the same direction (in the direction of the arrows in the drawings), the axis b of the rotary part RA
2
acting as the zero point. Turning the rotary part RA
20
changes the direction of the workpiece holding arms RA
1
, RA
1
′. This means that the workpiece is held securely by the two holding alms RA
1
and RA
1
′ which are located at the top and bottom. The workpiece is transported by the rotary motion.
However, in the arrangement of one Such robot, as the transport device, there are the following defects:
(1) As is shown in
FIG. 14
, the arms are extended or retracted. Therefore, the arms have a multi-jointed arrangement. Thus, the joints of the arms project above the robot rotary part. As a result, when the robot turns for transporting,g of the workpiece, it is necessary to ensure space for rotation so that no interference occurs between the arms, the workpiece which is held by the arms, and the other parts of the device. The cage-like body of the device therefore becomes large.
(2) The total height of the robot becomes large due to the arrangement of the joints and by the two arms being located at the top and bottom.
Therefore, it is difficult to remove the robots in the transverse direction of the cage-like body in which the robots, machining parts and the like are located. With consideration of the removal of the robot from the device, while waiting, there must be a waiting space above the robot, causing the entire device to become large.
If the robot can be removed in the transverse direction of the device, it is certainly not necessary to arrange the waiting space at the top. Since the overall height of the robot is however great, an arrangement must be made in which some of the frame of the cage-like body is absent in order to remove it in the transverse direction. In this way, however, the strength of the device is reduced, so that it cannot be done.
In one such device, on the other hand, there is a requirement for increasing the number of workpieces which can be treated within a unit of time, i.e., the throughput, as much as possible.
To improve the throughput, it is important to shorten the waiting time of the treatment parts of the device as much as possible. The expression “waiting time of the treatment parts of the device” is defined as the time after completion of treatments of the workpiece by the treatment parts until starting of treatments of the next workpiece. This time includes the time in which it is awaited for the next workpiece to be transported to the treatment part and the time in which the transported next workpiece (before treatment) is exchanged for the already treated workpiece.
To shorten the waiting time of the treatment part, it is necessary to transport the workpiece with high efficiency; this takes place as follows: Removal from the housing (cassette), in which the workpiece is located→Transport to the treatment part→reception of the already treated workpiece into the housing (cassette)
In the following, using the substrate treatment device which is shown, by way of example, in
FIG. 15
, the throughput for movement and treatment of the workpiece using the above described workpiece transport device is described.
In the substrate treatment device which is shown in
FIG. 15
, there are cassette receiving carriers CS
1
, CS
2
(hereinafter called “cassette receiving parts”) on each of which a respective housing (hereinafter called “cassette”) is seated in which the workpiece is located, an alignment part FA (a first treatment part) and an exposure part WS (a second treatment part) for exposure around the circular periphery of the rotating workpiece carrier device RA.
In the above described alignment part FA, positioning is performed in order to scat the workpiece in a stipulated position of the exposure part WS. In the exposure part WS, exposure light is emitted onto the workpiece which is seated on the exposure part via a mask on which a mask pattern is formed. Thus, the mask pattern is transported to the workpiece.
The workpiece transport device RA, on its end, has plug-in workpiece holding arms RA
1
, RA
1
′ which are provided with vacuum suction grooves as shown in FIG.
14
.
By extending or retracting the arms RA
1
, RA
1
′, the workpiece is removed from the respective site or is seated on the respective site. The workpiece which is fixed on the arms RA
1
, RA
1
′ is transported by rotary motion of the workpiece transport device RA from one site to another.
The two arms RA
1
and RA
1
′ of the workpiece transport device RA are located at the top and bottom, as is shown in FIG.
14
. The workpiece can be exchanged before treatment for the already treated workpiece by the two arms RA
1
, RA
1
′ in the treatment parts FA, WS.
In the following, the sequence of workpiece transport in the case of using the workpiece transport device in
FIG. 14
is described for the substrate treatment device in FIG.
15
:
In this case, for example, processes are imagined in which the workpiece W is removed from a cassette
1
which is located in the first cassette receiving part CS
1
and after treatment is received into a cassette
2
which is located in the second cassette receiving part CS
2
, as is shown in FIGS.
16
(
a
) and
16
(
b
).
(1) As is shown in FIG.
16
(
a
), the first arm RA
1
is extended in the direction toward the first cassette receiving part CS
1
and holds n-th workpiece Wn of cassette
1
. The first arm RA
1
is retracted and the workpiece Wn is removed.
(2) The workpiece transport device RA turns in the direction to the alignment part FA. The first al RA
1
is extended. The workpiece Wn is placed on the alignment part FA. Then, the arm RA
1
is retracted.
Alignment is performed in the alignment part FA. After completion
Bidwell James R.
Nixon & Peabody LLP
Safran David S.
Ushiodenki Kabushiki Kaisha
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