Semiconductor Wafer Container With Undulating Grooves
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Solution Overview
Problem
Semiconductor wafer containers are prone to damage due to impact from falls or handling errors, as the existing designs fail to provide adequate protection against strong forces, leading to wafer disengagement, rubbing, or contact with container walls.
Innovation Solution
The semiconductor wafer container features wafer retaining grooves in opposing pairs on the inner side walls with movement restraining portions and undulated wafer protecting grooves on the innermost wall, which are wider than the wafer thickness and have a sinusoidal or arcuate shape to prevent contact with the wafer edges, enhancing impact resistance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If V-groove shaped wafer retaining means are used to retain semiconductor wafers, then the wafers can be retained orderly and surely in normal state, but the wafers may be damaged by plane contact with the retaining means
Solution Approach 1:
The wafer retaining groove has a V-shaped cross-sectional configuration that creates localized contact points at the ridges of the wafer outer edge, concentrating the retaining force at specific locations rather than distributing it across the entire wafer surface. This localized contact prevents plane contact damage while maintaining reliable retention.
2Ease of operation
If guide grooves are formed on the inner surfaces of side walls to guide wafers, then orderly guidance is achieved, but the wafer surface may be damaged by strong force contact with the guide grooves
Solution Approach 1:
The harmful guide groove structure is completely removed from the container body. Instead, the V-shaped wafer retaining grooves on the side walls serve both retention and guidance functions, eliminating the need for separate guide grooves that could cause surface damage during impact.
3Reliability
If wafer retaining grooves are provided on side walls with reduced distance to restrain wafer movement, then inward movement is restrained, but the wafer outer edge may strike against the innermost wall under strong impact
Solution Approach 1:
The V-shaped wafer retaining grooves are positioned and dimensioned to provide preliminary restraint that prevents the wafer from reaching the innermost wall under normal and impact conditions. The grooves act as a cushioning mechanism that absorbs impact energy before the wafer can contact the innermost wall, preventing cracking.
4Reliability
If front retainer elastically presses wafers toward the innermost wall, then wafers are retained securely, but wafers may disengage from the retainer under strong impact
Solution Approach 1:
The front retainer and side wall retaining grooves are combined into an integrated retention system. The V-shaped grooves on the side walls work in conjunction with the front retainer to provide multi-point retention, preventing disengagement under impact by distributing the retaining force across multiple contact points rather than relying solely on the front retainer.
Data Source
AI summary
Wafer protecting grooves (10) are provided on an innermost wall (1b) of a container body (1). The wafer protecting grooves have a cross-sectional configuration in the shape of undulations having bottoms (10b), which are most distant from an opening (1a), at respective positions facing the outer edges of semiconductor wafers (W), and having an opening width wider than the thickness of each semiconductor wafer (W). In a normal state, an imaginary line (Q) connecting together the tops of the undulations is inward of or at the same position as the outer edges of the semiconductor wafers (W) facing the imaginary line. Thus, it is possible to obtain superior impact resistance that makes the semiconductor wafers (W) in the container body (1) unlikely to be damaged even when a large impact is applied thereto by a fall or other handling errors.