Material or article handling – Horizontally swinging load support – Swinging about pivot
Reexamination Certificate
2002-04-11
2004-03-30
Lillis, Eileen D. (Department: 3652)
Material or article handling
Horizontally swinging load support
Swinging about pivot
C414S226040, C414S782000, C414S783000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06712579
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate transfer apparatus for and a substrate transfer method of transferring any of a variety of substrates such as a semiconductor wafer, a liquid-crystal-display-panel glass substrate, a plasma-display-panel glass substrate, an optical-disk substrate, a magnetic-disk substrate, a photomagnetic-disk substrate and the like.
2. Description of Related Art
A substrate processing apparatus for processing a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer, a liquid-crystal-display-panel glass substrate or the like, comprises a substrate processing unit and an indexer unit connected thereto. The substrate processing unit comprises, for example, a plurality of processing chambers and a main transfer robot to execute a substrate carrying-in/carrying-out operation for carrying an unprocessed substrate in a processing chamber and carrying out a processed substrate from the processing chamber. On the other hand, the indexer unit comprises a cassette placing unit in which a cassette capable of housing a plurality of substrates is housed, and an indexer robot which has access to the cassette placed on the cassette placing unit for carrying-in/carrying-out of a substrate and which also receives/transfers a substrate from/to the main transfer robot.
The indexer robot carries out one unprocessed substrate from the cassette placed in the cassette placing unit and transfers the unprocessed substrate to the main transfer robot. The main transfer robot carries the unprocessed substrate thus received from the indexer robot, in any of the processing chambers. On the other hand, the main transfer robot takes out the processed substrate from a processing chamber and transfers this processed substrate to the indexer robot. The indexer robot houses the processed substrate thus received from the main transfer robot, in the cassette placed in the cassette placing unit.
Transfer of a substrate between the indexer robot and the main transfer robot is conducted with a substrate holding hand of the indexer robot located in a predetermined substrate transfer position. For example, a substrate positioning member of the cylinder drive type is disposed in association with the substrate holding hand of the indexer robot. When this substrate positioning member is driven, the substrate is relatively moved on the substrate holding hand, thus enabling the substrate to be positioned at an accurate position on the substrate holding hand. After the substrate has been thus positioned, the substrate is transferred from the indexer robot to the main transfer robot. As a result, the main transfer robot can hold the substrate in a stable manner. Accordingly, without occurrence of defective transfer (falling of a substrate or the like), the substrate can be transferred between the main transfer robot and the indexer robot and between the main transfer robot and a processing chamber.
The substrate holding hand of the main transfer robot is provided on the top thereof with a substrate supporting member. This substrate supporting member has an arrangement that a tapering face for bringing down a substrate to a predetermined position is formed inside and that a horizontal face joined with the lower end of the tapering face holds the peripheral edge of the underside of the substrate. It is solely the substrate supporting member that positions the substrate on the substrate holding hand of the main transfer robot. No positioning operation is conducted for transfer of a processed substrate from the main transfer robot to the indexer robot.
In the arrangement above-mentioned, the substrate is positioned with the use of the substrate positioning member of the cylinder drive type. This makes the arrangement complicated to prevent the substrate processing apparatus from being reduced in cost. Further, there is required a step of moving the substrate positioning member by a cylinder mechanism to position the substrate. Accordingly, it takes time to transfer the substrate from the indexer robot to the main transfer robot, thus preventing the throughput from being improved.
Further, before transfer of the substrate from the main transfer robot to the indexer robot, no substrate positioning is conducted. Thus, a processed substrate cannot disadvantageously securely be transferred.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a substrate transfer apparatus and a substrate transfer method, each of which is capable of positioning a substrate on the substrate holding hand with a simple arrangement, thus enabling the production cost to be reduced.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a substrate transfer apparatus and a substrate transfer method, each of which is capable of quickly positioning a substrate on the substrate holding hand, thus enabling the throughput to be improved.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a substrate transfer apparatus and a substrate transfer method, each of which is capable of previously positioning a substrate not only for transferring the substrate from a first substrate transfer mechanism to a second substrate transfer mechanism, but also for transferring the substrate from the second substrate transfer mechanism to the first substrate transfer mechanism, thus enabling the substrate to be securely transferred.
According to the present invention, a substrate transfer apparatus comprises: a first substrate transfer mechanism (IR) having a first substrate holding hand (
11
,
12
) which is movable while holding a substrate (W); and a first positioning mechanism (
71
,
72
) disposed, in the moving passage of a substrate held by the first substrate holding hand, independently from the first substrate transfer mechanism, and having a positioning contact portion for regulating the movement of a substrate such that the substrate is positioned at a predetermined position on the first substrate holding hand. This substrate transfer apparatus further comprises a second substrate transfer mechanism (CR) having a second substrate holding hand (
21
,
22
) for receiving and transferring a substrate directly from and to the first substrate holding hand.
The alphabets and numerals in the parentheses above-mentioned refer to corresponding component elements in the embodiment to be discussed later. However, it is not meant that the present invention is limited to this embodiment.
According to the present invention, when the first substrate holding hand is moved, the substrate held thereby comes in contact with the positioning contact portion of the first positioning mechanism, resulting in a relative movement of the substrate on the first substrate holding hand. Thus, the substrate can be positioned on the first substrate holding hand.
Since the positioning contact portion can fixedly be disposed in the moving passage of the substrate held by the first substrate holding hand, a cylinder drive mechanism or the like is not required as conventionally done. This simplifies the substrate transfer apparatus in arrangement, enabling the production cost to be lowered. Further, positioning the substrate on the first substrate holding hand can be achieved only by moving the first substrate holding hand. This eliminates a step of driving the substrate positioning member with the use of a cylinder drive mechanism as conventionally done. Thus, the substrate can quickly be positioned. This increases the substrate transfer speed, resulting in improvement in the throughput of a substrate processing apparatus incorporating this substrate transfer apparatus.
Further, the substrate positioned on the first substrate holding hand can securely be transferred to the second substrate holding hand. Positioning the substrate on the first substrate holding hand can quickly be achieved with a simple arrangement. Thus, a direct transfer of the substrate from the first substrate holding hand to the second substrate holding hand, can be achieved at high speed with a low cost.
It is preferable that the fi
Asa Fuminori
Fujii Kenji
Hayama Ryuichi
Komura Tomoyuki
Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co,. Ltd.
Lillis Eileen D.
Lowe Michael
Ostrolenk Faber Gerb & Soffen, LLP
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