System for conveying and transferring semiconductor or liquid crystal wafer one by one

Abstract

The present invention is in the process of production of semiconductor or liquid crystal in which wafers are supplied and withdrawn one by one instead of conventional methods of supplying and withdrawing wafers to and from its production system by means of an FOUP (sealed container) or a cassette containing 25 wafers as a unit. A special EFEM (2) is installed in front of each of about 12 to 20 manufacturing apparatuses in a bay (in the process) of a semiconductor manufacturing factory or a liquid crystal manufacturing factory. The EFEMs are interconnected through a clean tunnel (1) and continuous travelling single-wafer conveyors (15), thus constituting interconnected EFEMs. A repacking station (3) for packing wafers in a FOUP (12) and picking up a single wafer is provided near a coroner of one of the interconnected EFEMs and connected to a bay-to-bay small-batch conveyor (5). In each of the interconnected EFEMs constituting a minimum clean zone, a robot (20) having a hand with wafer-rotating mechanism is disposed so as to position a wafer and to read the bar code on a wafer. Since the robot can transfer a wafer very fast and a single-wafer conveyor conveys more than 1,000 wafers per hour, a production system with little wafer waiting time is realized. Compared with conventional batch-production systems using FOUP, the production time of the wafer pre-processing and the quantity of goods in process is decreased to 1 / 5 of that of the conventional systems, thus drastically reducing the inventory of finished goods.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to the transfer and loading of wafers by using the transfer and loading equipment in the form of connection in the clean channel, that is, EFEM (Equipment Front End Module), instead of using the usual 25-piece cassette or FOUP (airtight container) carries out the supply and recovery of wafers to the manufacturing equipment to realize the rationalization of shortening the manufacturing period and reducing the inventory of semi-finished products, and involves special EFEM, wafer transportation and transfer loading, and the reading method of the wafer number. Background technique [0002] So far, the method of transporting wafers in the pre-processing process of semiconductor manufacturing plants is to put wafers into boxes that can hold 25 pieces or Figure 15 In the FOUP (airtight container), the production equipment is supplied and recovered. Therefore, it is necessary to wait in the FOUP until the remaining 24 wafers are ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

For example, this method is shown in US5820679A, JP7-122622A, but the method of the transfer loading of conveyor and device is not yet clear, but the conveyor is to support the bottom surface of the wafer with the conveyor belt, there is a problem caused by the friction between the wafer and the conveyor belt. Dust does not meet the latest specifications in wafer manufacturing that do not contact the bottom surface of the wafer as much as possible

Furthermore, no consideration is shown in this method to minimize the clean area necessary for the production of semiconductors or liquid crystals

In addition, there is no concept of connecting multiple EFEMs with a clean area, and the concept of EFEMs that speed up the connection form during manufacturing by transporting wafers in a single piece

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