JP2000053237A - Carrier equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve carrier efficiency. SOLUTION: Carrier equipment is so constituted that a cassette storage body 39 for storing a cassette box 49 is formed on a carrier carriage, a transfer device 40 is provided in the upper part of the cassette storage body 39, and an arm 42 which freely advances/retreats the transfer device 40 from the carrier carriage in the horizontal direction crossing with the advancing direction of the carrier carriage, and a hoist 43 which is so formed as to freely hold/release the cassette box and vertically moves the cassette box with its held therewith is provided in the tip of the arm 42.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a transfer facility used in a factory or the like to transfer an object to be transferred.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As this type of transfer equipment, the one shown in FIG. 4 is known. The transport equipment 1 shown in FIG.
Transport system S in a clean room in a semiconductor factory
, And a cassette containing semiconductor wafers or the like can be freely transported between stockers 3,... Provided in each of the processes 2,.

FIG. 5 shows the appearance of the transport equipment 1. The transport equipment 1 is provided with a track 5 formed in a loop as a whole, and a transport carriage 8 on which a cassette 6 is mounted runs on the track 5. In the figure, reference numeral 9 denotes a self-propelled mobile robot used for transportation in the process 2. The mobile robot 9 transfers the cassettes 6, which have been transferred from the orbit 5 to the stocker 3, by each manufacturing apparatus. 10,... Are conveyed.

[0004]

By the way, in the above-mentioned clean room, in order to increase the production efficiency with limited equipment and to reduce the semiconductor manufacturing cost, the transfer amount per unit time of the transfer equipment as described above is used. There is a growing demand to increase

However, in the transport system S as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, the cassettes 6,... Transported on the track 5 are transferred to the stockers 3,.
Furthermore, the stockers 3,...
, The cassettes 6,... Are transferred to the manufacturing apparatus 10, so that the transfer in the process 2 such as the transfer of the cassettes 6,. There was also a limit on the transport amount.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to improve the transport efficiency of a transport facility by enabling a transported object to be directly transported from a transport track side to a manufacturing facility side. And

[0007]

Means for Solving the Problems To solve the above problems, the present invention employs the following means. That is,
The transport facility according to claim 1, wherein the transport vehicle on which the transported object is mounted is configured to travel on a track,
An article storage section for storing the article to be transported is formed on the transport trolley, and a transfer device is provided above the article storage section to be transported. The trolley is configured to have an arm that can advance and retreat in a horizontal direction that intersects with the traveling direction of the transport trolley. At the tip of the arm, the transported object is formed so as to be capable of holding and detaching the transferred object. And a holding mechanism capable of moving the object up and down while holding the object.

[0008] Because of such a configuration, in this transport equipment, the transferred object can be directly transferred between the transport trolley and the manufacturing equipment side by the transfer device. In particular, in this case, the transfer of the transferred object can be performed in a state in which the transfer device extends laterally from the carriage. In addition, since the transferred object can be freely moved up and down, the transfer operation of the transferred object is not restricted by the height position of the receiving window for the transferred object on the manufacturing facility side.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided the transportation equipment according to the first aspect, wherein the transportation carriage has a stable and freely retractable forward and backward movement in a direction opposite to a direction in which the arm of the transfer device advances. The feature is that a sex retention mechanism is provided.

In this transport equipment, even when the transfer device is extended laterally from the transport vehicle, the use of the stability holding mechanism prevents the transport vehicle from tilting due to the weight of the transported object. be able to.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. The embodiment described here is one in which the transfer equipment of the present invention is applied to transfer of a cassette containing semiconductor wafers and the like in a clean room in a semiconductor factory.

FIG. 3 shows a transport system S 'for cassettes of semiconductor wafers and the like in the clean room.
This is an overall overview of The transport system S ′ is configured, for example, to include a transport facility 14 disposed on a ceiling of a clean room or the like and having a track 13 for guiding a transport vehicle. Also, around the track 13, there are arranged stockers 15,... For accommodating cassettes, manufacturing apparatuses 16,.

The track 13 includes a main track 18 provided in a loop as a whole, a first branch track 19 provided for the stockers 15,. The second branch orbits 20,... Provided so as to reach 16,.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a transport vehicle 21 traveling on the track 13. As shown in the figure, the track 13 is formed in a box cross-section,
The carriage main body 22 of the transport carriage 21 is housed in the internal space 13a.

The bogie main body 22 includes wheels 24 running on the bottom surface of the track 13 and guide rollers 25 for abutting the inner wall of the track 13 to guide the bogie main body. A coil 27 provided on the bottom of the bogie main body 22 includes By functioning as a linear motor 30 together with the magnet 28 provided on the bottom surface of the track 13, the vehicle runs on the track 13 using the linear motor 30 as propulsion means.

A support 31 is provided on the upper part of the bogie main body 22. The pickup coil 3 receives power from a feeder line 32 provided on the track 15 by the support 31.
3 are supported. Power is supplied to the coil 27 or a control device (not shown) by the pickup coil 33. Further, the bogie main body 22 is equipped with a control signal receiving device (not shown), a communication device with a station, a collision prevention sensor, and the like.

The support 31 has an upper end 31a which
It is configured to extend upward from a slit 36 provided in the track 15 and to support a bed 38 positioned above the track 13. Above the loading platform 38, a box-shaped cassette storage unit (transported object storage unit) 39 is provided. On the ceiling 39a of the cassette storage unit 39, a transfer device 40 is provided in a suspended state. Have been.

As shown in the figure, the transfer device 40 includes an arm (arm) 42 fixed to the ceiling 39a of the cassette housing 39, and a hoist (holding mechanism) 43 supported by the arm 42. It has a configuration. Arm 4
Reference numeral 2 is configured to be able to advance and retreat in a horizontal direction (direction A in the figure) orthogonal to the traveling direction of the transport vehicle 21 as indicated by a two-dot chain line in the figure.

On the other hand, the hoist 43 is provided with a winch 46 capable of winding and unwinding the wire 45 and a wire 45
And a chuck mechanism 47 provided at the tip of the. The chuck mechanism 47, as shown in FIG.
It is configured to be able to engage and disengage with a handle 50 of a cassette box (transported object) 49 in which semiconductor wafers are stored, and thereby it is possible to hold the cassette box 49.

Therefore, according to the transfer device 40,
As shown by a chain line in FIG. 1, it is possible to wind down the wire 45 by the winch 46 and lower the chuck mechanism 47 in a state where the arm 42 extends to the side of the carriage 21. Then, with the chuck mechanism 47 lowered to the outside of the track 13, the handle 50 of the cassette box 49 located outside the track 13 is chucked as shown in FIG. 2, and the chucked cassette box 49 is lifted up. When the arm 42 is retracted, the cassette box 49 located outside the track 13 can be stored while being held inside the cassette storage body 39 as shown by a solid line in FIG. By performing the reverse procedure, the cassette box 49 held inside the cassette housing 39 can be transferred to the outside of the track 13.

Further, as shown in FIG. 1, a counter weight (stability holding mechanism) 51 is provided on the ceiling 39a of the cassette housing 39. As shown by the chain line in FIG.
The arm 42 of the transfer device 40 can be advanced and retracted in the direction opposite to the direction in which the arm 42 extends.

In the transport equipment 14 configured as described above, since the transport carriage 21 is provided with a transfer mechanism, the cassette box 49 transported on the track 13 is directly manufactured by the manufacturing apparatus 16,. Can be transferred to
Therefore, some stockers and transfer robots that have been conventionally required for transfer of the transferred object can be eliminated. As a result, equipment costs can be reduced,
In addition, since the inter-process transfer and the intra-process transfer can mutually enter, the transfer efficiency can be significantly improved. Further, in the transport equipment 14, the stocker 1
When the cassette box 49 is transferred to the transfer carriage 5,
Since the transfer mechanism 40 attached to one side can be used, there is no need to provide a transfer mechanism (loader) on the stocker 15 side. Therefore, the equipment cost of the stockers 15,... Can be reduced, and the number of shelves of the stockers 15 can be increased by utilizing the space in which the transfer mechanism is conventionally provided. Further, in the transport equipment 14, the cassette box 49 can be placed on the loading platform 38 while the transport vehicle 21 is traveling.
There is no fear that the cassette box 49 falls into the work space during the traveling of the vehicle.

Further, in the transfer equipment 14, since the transfer of the cassette box 49 can be performed in a state where the transfer device 40 provided on the transfer trolley 21 is laterally extended from the transfer trolley 21, the transfer of the cassette box 49 can be performed. There is no restriction in the height direction during delivery. Thereby, it is possible to satisfactorily cope with the case where the track 13 is installed near the ceiling. Further, the transfer device 40
Since the cassette box 49 can be freely moved up and down, even if the height position of the receiving window of the cassette box 49 on the manufacturing apparatus 16,... Work is not restricted, and versatility is high.

In the transfer equipment 14, when the cassette box 49 is transferred, the transfer carriage 21
The counterweight 51 can advance to the side opposite to the side from which the transfer device 40 has advanced. Thus, even when the weight of the cassette box 49 is large, the carrier cart 21 can be prevented from tilting, and the safety of the transfer of the cassette box 14 can be ensured.

In the above-described embodiment, it is possible to adopt another configuration without departing from the spirit of the present invention. For example, in the above-described embodiment, an outrigger may be provided instead of the counterweight 51, and when the cassette box 49 is delivered, the outrigger may be extended to secure the balance of the transport vehicle 21.

[0026]

As described above, in the transport equipment according to the first aspect, the transfer device directly transfers the transported object stored in the transported object storage section to the manufacturing apparatus or the like. Therefore, equipment such as a robot conventionally required for transfer of an object to be transferred can be eliminated. As a result, it is possible to reduce equipment costs in factories and the like. Further, according to this transfer equipment, the inter-process transfer and the intra-process transfer in the factory can be mutually entered, and the transfer efficiency can be remarkably improved as compared with the related art. Further, in this transport equipment, since the transported device can store the transported object in the transported object storage portion while holding the transported object, there is no fear of the transported object dropping, and the safety is high. In addition, since the transferred object can be delivered while the transfer device is protruding to the side from the transport trolley, there is no restriction in the height direction when transferring the transferred object, and the track is installed near the ceiling Even if it does, it is possible to cope well. Further, since the transfer device can move the transferred object freely up and down, even if the height position of the receiving window for the transferred object on the manufacturing apparatus side is different for each device, There is no restriction on the work of transferring the transferred object, and the versatility is high.

In the transfer equipment according to the second aspect, the transfer carriage tilts even when the weight of the transferred object is large by using the stability holding mechanism when transferring the transferred object. Can be prevented, and safety at the time of delivery of the transferred object can be ensured.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a vertical sectional view of a transport trolley used in a transport facility according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged sectional view showing a situation when a cassette box is held by a transfer mechanism provided on the transporting cart shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a plan view schematically showing an overall outline of the transport equipment shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a view showing a conventional technique of the present invention, and is a plan view schematically showing an overall outline of a conventional transport system in a factory.

5 is an external perspective view of a transfer facility used in the transfer system shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 13 Track 14 Transport equipment 21 Transport trolley 39 Cassette storage body (transport object storage part) 40 Transfer device 42 Arm (arm part) 43 Hoist (holding mechanism) 49 Cassette box (transport object) 51 Counter weight (stability holding) mechanism)

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A transport facility having a configuration in which a transport trolley on which an object to be transported travels on a track is provided with a transport object storage section for storing the transport object on the transport trolley. A transfer device is provided above the transferred object storage unit, and the transfer device has an arm that can move forward and backward in the horizontal direction that intersects with the traveling direction of the transport vehicle from the transport vehicle. At the tip of the arm portion, a holding mechanism is provided, which is formed so as to be capable of holding and detaching the object to be conveyed and capable of moving up and down while holding the object to be conveyed. Transfer equipment. 2. The transport equipment according to claim 1, wherein the transport trolley is provided with a stability holding mechanism capable of moving forward and backward in a direction opposite to a direction in which the arm of the transfer device advances. Transfer equipment.