CN220856539U - Mechanical arm and conveying device - Google Patents

Abstract

The application provides a mechanical arm and a conveying device, wherein the mechanical arm comprises: the mechanical arm body is internally provided with a plurality of vacuum pipelines, and one surface of the mechanical arm body close to the wafer is provided with holes, so that most of the area of the wafer is suspended, and the problems of hidden injury, crack, fragment and the like of the wafer caused by particulate matters under the operation of force under the pressure condition generated during vacuum adsorption are avoided. The vacuum bench is positioned on the mechanical arm body, the upper surface of the vacuum bench is higher than the upper surface of the mechanical arm body, and a plurality of vacuum adsorption ports are arranged in the vacuum bench and are communicated with the vacuum pipeline. The bump type vacuum step arm enables wafers to be suspended in the carrying process, reduces contact area, avoids the whole surface contacting with the wafers, and avoids the damage or bursting of the wafers caused by particles, thereby greatly improving production yield.

Description

Mechanical arm and conveying device

Technical Field

The application relates to the field of semiconductor manufacturing, in particular to a mechanical arm and a conveying device.

Background

The wafer refers to a silicon wafer used for manufacturing a silicon semiconductor integrated circuit, and is a basic material for manufacturing a semiconductor chip. The thickness of the center area of the wafer can reach below 200 μm after the wafer is ground by the thinning process. As semiconductor devices move toward miniaturization, the wafer thickness of the wafers used therein becomes thinner and thinner. In practical manufacturing processes, how to safely and effectively transfer thinner wafers is an important issue.

In the current wafer transmission process, the wafer transmission and transfer mode mainly uses a mechanical arm to clamp and transmit. For the clamping type transmission of the manipulator, the manipulator is required to be in direct mechanical contact with the surface of the wafer, and the manipulator clamps and transmits the wafer by means of friction force, so that the problem of stress concentration is inevitably generated, and the wafer is easy to break.

Disclosure of utility model

The present application is directed to a robot arm and a transfer device, which at least partially improve the above-mentioned problems.

In order to achieve the above object, the technical scheme adopted by the embodiment of the application is as follows:

in a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a mechanical arm, including:

The wafer cleaning device comprises a mechanical arm body, wherein a plurality of vacuum pipelines are arranged in the mechanical arm body, and a hole is formed in one surface of the mechanical arm body, which is close to a wafer;

The vacuum bench is located on the mechanical arm body, the upper surface of the vacuum bench is higher than the upper surface of the mechanical arm body, a plurality of vacuum adsorption ports are arranged in the vacuum bench, and the vacuum adsorption ports are communicated with the vacuum pipe.

Optionally, the plurality of vacuum adsorption ports are uniformly distributed in the vacuum step.

Optionally, the mechanical arm body is a C-shaped main body.

Optionally, the mechanical arm body is a ring-shaped body.

Optionally, the diameter of the outer edge of the circular region formed by the plurality of vacuum steps is smaller than the diameter of the wafer.

Optionally, the mechanical arm body is connected with the driving device through a mounting part.

Optionally, a vacuum hole is provided on the mounting portion, the vacuum hole being for connecting the vacuum line and an external vacuum source.

Optionally, a sensor is disposed on the mounting portion, and the sensor is configured to monitor corresponding status data and transmit the status data to an upper computer when the robot arm carries the wafer.

Optionally, the plurality of vacuum steps are equally spaced apart on the robot body.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a conveying apparatus, including: the mechanical arm; and the mechanical arm body is connected with the driving device through the mounting part.

Compared with the prior art, the mechanical arm and the conveying device provided by the embodiment of the application comprise: the mechanical arm body is internally provided with a plurality of vacuum pipelines, and one surface of the mechanical arm body, which is close to the wafer, is provided with holes; the vacuum bench is positioned on the mechanical arm body, the upper surface of the vacuum bench is higher than the upper surface of the mechanical arm body, and a plurality of vacuum adsorption ports are arranged in the vacuum bench and are communicated with the vacuum pipeline. The mechanical arm body is provided with holes on one surface close to the wafer, so that most of the area of the wafer is suspended in the process of carrying the wafer, and the problems of hidden injury, crack, broken piece and the like of the wafer caused by particulate matters under the operation of force under the pressure condition generated during vacuum adsorption are avoided. Because the vacuum step forms the boss type structure for the robotic arm body, the bump type vacuum step arm, the wafer in the handling process is unsettled, reduces the contact area, avoids the whole surface to contact the wafer, and avoids the particles to cause the damage or bursting of the wafer, thereby greatly improving the production yield.

In order to make the above objects, features and advantages of the present application more comprehensible, preferred embodiments accompanied with figures are described in detail below.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, the drawings that are needed in the embodiments will be briefly described below, it being understood that the following drawings only illustrate some embodiments of the present application and therefore should not be considered as limiting the scope, and other related drawings may be obtained according to these drawings without inventive effort for a person skilled in the art.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a full-contact adsorption disk for wafers according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a mechanical arm according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a comparison of the carrying effects of FIGS. 1 and 2 according to an embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 4 is a top view of a robot arm according to an embodiment of the present application.

In the figure: 101-a mechanical arm body; 102-vacuum steps; 103-an installation part; 104-vacuum holes; 105-sensor; 106-fixing screw holes; 201-a disc-shaped body; 202-vacuum adsorption module.

Detailed Description

For the purpose of making the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present application more apparent, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present application, and it is apparent that the described embodiments are some embodiments of the present application, but not all embodiments of the present application. The components of the embodiments of the present application generally described and illustrated in the figures herein may be arranged and designed in a wide variety of different configurations.

Thus, the following detailed description of the embodiments of the application, as presented in the figures, is not intended to limit the scope of the application, as claimed, but is merely representative of selected embodiments of the application. All other embodiments, which can be made by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the application without making any inventive effort, are intended to be within the scope of the application.

It should be noted that: like reference numerals and letters denote like items in the following figures, and thus once an item is defined in one figure, no further definition or explanation thereof is necessary in the following figures. Meanwhile, in the description of the present application, the terms "first", "second", and the like are used only to distinguish the description, and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance.

It is noted that relational terms such as first and second, and the like are used solely to distinguish one entity or action from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions. Moreover, the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Without further limitation, an element defined by the phrase "comprising one … …" does not exclude the presence of other like elements in a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises the element.

In the description of the present application, it should be noted that, directions or positional relationships indicated by terms such as "upper", "lower", "inner", "outer", etc., are directions or positional relationships based on those shown in the drawings, or those conventionally put in use in the application, are merely for convenience of description and simplification of the description, and do not indicate or imply that the apparatus or elements referred to must have a specific orientation, be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and thus should not be construed as limiting the present application.

In the description of the present application, it should also be noted that, unless explicitly specified and limited otherwise, the terms "disposed", "connected" and "connected" are to be construed broadly, and may be, for example, fixedly connected, detachably connected or integrally connected; can be mechanically or electrically connected; can be directly connected or indirectly connected through an intermediate medium, and can be communication between two elements. The specific meaning of the above terms in the present application will be understood in specific cases by those of ordinary skill in the art.

Some embodiments of the present application are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The following embodiments and features of the embodiments may be combined with each other without conflict.

In order to ensure the safety of wafer transportation, the wafer transportation and transportation mode by using the mechanical arm for clamping and transportation is improved, and the novel mechanical arm comprises a full-contact adsorption disc. Referring to fig. 1, fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a full-contact adsorption disc for wafers according to an embodiment of the application. As shown in fig. 1, the full contact adsorption disk includes a disk-shaped body 201 and a plurality of sets of vacuum adsorption assemblies 202 disposed on the disk-shaped body 201. When the full-contact adsorption disc is used for conveying the wafer, a plurality of groups of vacuum adsorption assemblies 202 are used for sucking the wafer, in the process, the wafer is in full-contact with the disc-shaped body 201 of the full-contact adsorption disc, the coverage overlapping rate of the wafer and the disc-shaped body is about >90%, and the wafer conveying and transferring mode is also called surface adsorption type conveying.

The surface-mounted transfer also presents a risk in transferring wafers. Optionally, after the wafer product is ground to less than 90um, the conveying arm for surface adsorption conveying has a certain risk, and is particularly easy to be polluted by fine and unidentifiable matters such as defects, particles and the like, so that the problems of hidden damage, cracks, fragments and the like of the wafer are easy to occur in the conveying process, and commonly called the polluted matters burst the wafer.

The inventors have observed that the wafer is easily contaminated when Full size (entire surface) contacts the wafer during the surface adsorption transfer, and that the contaminant is not easily detached by itself nor easily detected when the contaminant in the environment adheres to the surface of the disk-shaped body 201. When the wafer is contacted with the whole surface of the adsorption plate in a vacuum full-coverage manner, the wafer is easily broken or subjected to hidden damage, cracks and the like after being adsorbed on the surface of the plate-shaped body 201 under the action of vacuum pressure.

In order to overcome the above problems, the embodiments of the present application provide a robot arm, which reduces the contact area between a wafer and the robot arm during the wafer handling process. Optionally, most of the area of the wafer is suspended, so that the problems of hidden damage, cracks, fragments and the like of the wafer caused by the operation of the particulate matters under the pressure condition generated during vacuum adsorption are avoided.

Referring to fig. 2, fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a mechanical arm according to an embodiment of the application. As shown in fig. 2, the robot arm includes: a robot body 101 and a plurality of vacuum steps 102.

The wafer processing device comprises a mechanical arm body 101, wherein a plurality of vacuum pipelines are arranged in the mechanical arm body 101, and a hole is formed in one surface of the mechanical arm body 101, which is close to the wafer.

Optionally, when the wafer is carried by the mechanical arm body 101, the center of the adsorption surface corresponding to the wafer is a hole, and the area ratio of the hole to the area of the mechanical arm body 101 is greater than a preset ratio, so that most of the area of the wafer is suspended in the process of carrying the wafer, and the problems of hidden injury, crack, fragment and the like of the wafer caused by the operation of particulate matters under the force under the pressure condition generated during vacuum adsorption are avoided.

The vacuum bench 102 is located on the mechanical arm body 101, the upper surface of the vacuum bench 102 is higher than the upper surface of the mechanical arm body 101, and a plurality of vacuum adsorption ports are arranged in the vacuum bench 102 and are communicated with a vacuum pipeline.

Alternatively, the vacuum line may deliver vacuum fluid to a vacuum suction port within the vacuum step 102 through which suction of the wafer is achieved. The vacuum line is a sealed internal channel inside the robot body 101.

Optionally, because the upper surface of the vacuum step 102 is higher than the upper surface of the robot arm body 101, the vacuum step 102 forms a bump type structure relative to the robot arm body 101, and the bump type vacuum step arm suspends the wafer in the handling process, so that the contact area is reduced, for example, the contact area is less than 5%, the whole surface is prevented from contacting the wafer, and the damage or bursting of the wafer caused by the particulate matters is avoided, thereby greatly improving the production yield.

Referring to fig. 3, fig. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a comparison of the carrying effects of fig. 1 and fig. 2 according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 3, in the process of carrying the wafer, the contact area between the robot arm provided in fig. 2 and the wafer is smaller than that between the robot arm and the full-contact adsorption disc provided in fig. 1, so that the possibility of propping damage or bursting the wafer caused by particles can be reduced, and the production yield is greatly improved.

Optionally, a plurality of vacuum suction ports are uniformly distributed within the vacuum step 102.

Optionally, the number of the vacuum steps 102 is 3 or 4, so that the vacuum steps 102 are reduced as much as possible and the contact area of the wafer is reduced under the condition of ensuring the stable adsorption effect.

Optionally, the geometry of the vacuum step 102 is a circular column, and the vacuum step 102 protrudes with respect to the robot body 101, which may serve to support the wafer. The upper surface of the round column of the vacuum step 102 is porous, the hole is a vacuum adsorption port and used for vacuum adsorption, the rest part of the upper surface of the round column of the vacuum step 102 is removed, the contact area between the upper surface of the round column of the vacuum step 102 and a wafer is further reduced, and more area of the wafer is in a suspended state.

Optionally, the thickness of the thinned wafer is 30-50 um at the most, and the step height is 0.7mm at the most. This limitation can be broken through in the present solution, and the height of the vacuum step 102 is greater than or equal to 1mm. Optionally, the vacuum step 102 and the robot body 101 are manufactured as an integral unit.

Alternatively, the robot body 101 is a C-shaped main body, as shown in fig. 2.

Optionally, the C-shaped body may be designed to accommodate both the two thinned wafers, taiko (tai-gu) thinning and the common thinning, and the provision of a single port is used for the common thinned special case.

Optionally, the robot body 101 is a ring-shaped body, which is not shown in fig. 2.

Alternatively, as shown in fig. 3, the diameter of the outer edge of the circular region formed by the plurality of vacuum steps 102 is smaller than the diameter of the wafer, so that the plurality of vacuum steps 102 can be adsorbed and supported to the corresponding region of the wafer.

Referring to fig. 4, fig. 4 is a top view of a mechanical arm according to an embodiment of the application. As shown in fig. 4, the robot arm further includes a mounting portion 103, and the robot arm body 101 is connected to the driving device through the mounting portion 103. Alternatively, the mounting portion 103 and the robot arm body 101 are integrally formed.

In one possible implementation, a fixing screw hole 106 is provided on the mounting portion 103. The mounting portion 103 is fixedly connected to the driving apparatus through the fixing screw hole 106.

Optionally, a vacuum hole is provided on the mounting portion 103, and the vacuum hole 104 is used to connect a vacuum line and an external vacuum source, thereby transferring vacuum fluid generated by the vacuum source to the vacuum stage 102.

Optionally, a sensor 105 is disposed on the mounting portion 103, where the sensor 105 is configured to monitor corresponding status data and transmit the status data to the upper computer when the robot arm carries the wafer.

Alternatively, the sensor 105 is a light-sensitive sensor. The warpage of the wafer can be detected by a light-sensitive sensor, the degree of the warpage can be reflected by the size of the reflection, and after the degree of the warpage exceeds a set range, the machine stops conveying, so that the problems of unstable adsorption, chip falling and the like are avoided. Namely, the light sensor monitors the warpage of the wafer and transmits the warpage of the wafer to the upper computer, and the upper computer stops transmitting after determining that the warpage of the wafer exceeds a set range, so that unstable adsorption is avoided.

Optionally, a plurality of vacuum steps 102 are equally spaced apart on the robot body 101.

The embodiment of the application also provides a conveying device, which comprises:

The mechanical arm;

and a driving device to which the robot arm body 101 is connected via the mounting portion 103.

In summary, an embodiment of the present application provides a mechanical arm and a conveying device, where the mechanical arm includes: the mechanical arm body is internally provided with a plurality of vacuum pipelines, and one surface of the mechanical arm body, which is close to the wafer, is provided with holes; the vacuum bench is positioned on the mechanical arm body, the upper surface of the vacuum bench is higher than the upper surface of the mechanical arm body, and a plurality of vacuum adsorption ports are arranged in the vacuum bench and are communicated with the vacuum pipeline. The mechanical arm body is provided with holes on one surface close to the wafer, so that most of the area of the wafer is suspended in the process of carrying the wafer, and the problems of hidden injury, crack, broken piece and the like of the wafer caused by particulate matters under the operation of force under the pressure condition generated during vacuum adsorption are avoided. Because the vacuum step forms the boss type structure for the robotic arm body, the bump type vacuum step arm, the wafer in the handling process is unsettled, reduces the contact area, avoids the whole surface to contact the wafer, and avoids the particles to cause the damage or bursting of the wafer, thereby greatly improving the production yield.

The above description is only of the preferred embodiments of the present application and is not intended to limit the present application, but various modifications and variations can be made to the present application by those skilled in the art. Any modification, equivalent replacement, improvement, etc. made within the spirit and principle of the present application should be included in the protection scope of the present application.

It will be evident to those skilled in the art that the application is not limited to the details of the foregoing illustrative embodiments, and that the present application may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof. The present embodiments are, therefore, to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive, the scope of the application being indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description, and all changes which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are therefore intended to be embraced therein. Any reference sign in a claim should not be construed as limiting the claim concerned.

Claims (7)

1. A robotic arm, the robotic arm comprising:

The wafer cleaning device comprises a mechanical arm body, wherein a plurality of vacuum pipelines are arranged in the mechanical arm body, and a hole is formed in one surface of the mechanical arm body, which is close to a wafer;

The vacuum steps are positioned on the mechanical arm body, the upper surface of each vacuum step is higher than the upper surface of the mechanical arm body, a plurality of vacuum adsorption ports are arranged in each vacuum step, each vacuum adsorption port is communicated with the vacuum pipeline, and the vacuum adsorption ports are uniformly distributed in each vacuum step;

The mechanical arm body is connected with the driving equipment through a mounting part, a sensor is arranged on the mounting part and is used for monitoring corresponding state data and transmitting the state data to the upper computer when the mechanical arm conveys the wafer, the sensor is a light sensor, and the state data is the warpage of the wafer;

the vacuum step and the mechanical arm body are integrally formed in a manufacturing mode.

2. The robot arm of claim 1, wherein said robot arm body is a C-shaped body.

3. The robot of claim 1, wherein the robot body is a ring-shaped body.

4. A robot arm as claimed in claim 2 or 3, wherein the diameter of the outer edge of the circular region of vacuum steps is smaller than the diameter of the wafer.

5. A robot arm as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that a vacuum hole is provided in the mounting part for connecting the vacuum line to an external vacuum source.

6. The robot arm of claim 1, wherein said plurality of vacuum steps are equally spaced apart in said robot arm body.

7. A transfer device, comprising:

A robot arm as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 6;

and the mechanical arm body is connected with the driving device through the mounting part.