JPH0521580A - Thin plate inserting and taking-out equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To unnecessitate the height adjustment or the manual measurement of a thin plate and a finger, by automatically measuring the relative position of the thin plate detection height by a thin plate position detecting means and the finger for inserting and taking out the thin plate. CONSTITUTION:In the state that a knife edge 11 is positioned higher than a finger 12, it is extended toward the side of a photo detector 9, and a wafer carrier stand 7 is made to gradually descend. When a detector 13 detects that the finger 12 comes into contact with the knife edge 11, the wafer carrier stand 7 is made to ascend, and stopped at the place where the tip of the knife edge 11 is detected with a light beam 10. At this time the ascent amount (h) of the wafer carrier stand 7 becomes the relative position between the finger 11 and the light beam 10. When the wafer 1 is carried in or carried out, the height wherein the wafer can be carried in or carried out with the finger 12 is obtained, by driving the wafer carrier stand 7 by the previously obtained relative position (h) from the position where the wafer 1 is detected.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thin plate insertion / extraction device for accommodating or extracting a thin plate such as a wafer into or from a thin plate storage box such as a wafer carrier.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus such as a semiconductor printing apparatus or an inspection apparatus, as a wafer inserting / extracting apparatus for inserting / removing a wafer into / from a wafer carrier having a multistage wafer storage groove, Japanese Patent Publication No.
9-175740 and Japanese Patent Application No. 2-129181. The configuration of the prior application example described in Japanese Patent Application No. 2-129181 will be described below. In the prior application, the wafer position detector is used to store the position of the wafer in the storage box (carrier) in a semiconductor memory or the like, and based on the data, the height of the arbitrary wafer and the height of the take-out finger are set. Is set, and the wafer is vacuum-sucked to the finger and taken out, or the wafer is sucked by the finger and then stored in the designated position of the storage box.

The above structure has the following problems. That is, since the height position of the finger and the height position of the wafer position detector are different, the relative position between the two is accurately adjusted or manually measured and held as data in the control system in the wafer insertion / extraction device. There was a need.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention, in a thin plate insertion / extraction device, automatically measures the relative position between the height position of the extraction finger and the thin plate position detector to accurately adjust the relative position between them. It is intended to be unnecessary.

[0005]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the present invention, a finger for inserting / removing a thin plate into / from a thin plate storage box, and a means for moving the thin plate storage box and the finger relatively up and down. And a means for detecting the height position of the thin plate in the thin plate storage box arranged at a position where the relative height of the fingers is constant, and a relative height between the finger and the thin plate detection position by the thin plate position detecting means. It is provided with means for detecting and means for correcting the amount of elevation by the elevating means at the time of inserting and removing the thin plate based on the detected relative height.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the relative height detecting means detects a knife edge attached to a base for fixing the thin plate storage box and that the knife edge has crossed the thin plate detection position. And means for detecting that the knife edge has contacted the finger.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the platform for mounting a wafer storage box for storing a thin plate, which is a semiconductor wafer, moves up and down, and the height of the take-out arm (finger) and the height of the wafer position detector are fixed. . In this case, using the wafer position detector, a means for measuring the fixed height of the table on which the wafer storage box is placed and a means for measuring the relative position between the takeout arm and the fixed height of the table on which the wafer storage box is placed are provided. By doing so, the relative position between the wafer position detector and the take-out arm can be obtained.

[0008]

According to the above construction, the relative position between the height position of the take-out finger and the hawk mounting of the thin plate position detecting means can be automatically measured, and the measured value is used to take out the thin plate. Since the vertical movement of the thin plate storage box is corrected, accurate and stable thin plate insertion / extraction can be realized without accurately adjusting the relative position of the take-out finger and the thin plate position detection means or setting this relative position data. can do.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

1 to 5 show the construction and operation of a wafer insertion / ejection apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 to 5 are wafers to be inserted and taken out, 6 is a wafer carrier having a wafer accommodating groove for accommodating wafers, and 7 is a wafer carrier stand on which the wafer carrier 6 is placed and which can be moved up and down. The wafer carrier table 7 is provided with a mechanism capable of outputting the vertical movement amount thereof, for example, an encoder. Reference numeral 8 is a light emitting element such as a semiconductor laser, 9 is a light receiving element such as a photo sensor, and the light emitting element 8 and the light receiving element 9 constitute a wafer position detector. In this wafer position detector, when the light beam 10 emitted from the light emitting element 8 is blocked or transmitted by an object such as a wafer between the light emitting element 8 and the light receiving element 9, the amount of vertical movement of the wafer carrier table 7 is increased. The position of an object such as a wafer can be specified by detecting the.

Reference numeral 11 denotes a knife edge that can move up and down together with the wafer carrier table 7 to shield the light beam. Reference numeral 12 is a finger for loading and unloading the wafer. By moving the finger back and forth, the wafer 1 in the wafer carrier 6 is moved.
It is possible to carry out the wafers 1 to 5 from the wafer carrier 6 or vice versa by being located on the back surface of the wafers 5 to 5 and adsorbing the back surface.

Reference numeral 13 is a detector capable of detecting contact between the knife edge and the finger, and h is a relative position between the finger 12 and the light beam 10 which can be obtained by the present invention.

In the above structure, with the knife edge 11 at a position higher than the finger 12, the finger 12 is extended to the side of the light receiving element 9 in the same manner as when the wafer is loaded and unloaded, and the wafer carrier table 7 is gradually lowered. As shown in FIG. 2, the contact between the finger 12 and the knife edge 11 is detected by the detector 13
When is detected, the wafer carrier table 7 is raised, and the wafer carrier table is stopped at the position where the tip of the knife edge 11 is detected by the wafer detector (light beam 10) as shown in FIG. At this time, the amount h by which the wafer carrier table is raised is the relative position between the finger 11 and the light beam 10.

Next, when the wafer 1 is carried in and out, the wafer carrier table 7 on which the wafer carrier 6 is placed is lowered as in the case of the prior application, and the wafer detector (light beam 10) as shown in FIG. ), The wafer 1 is detected. After that, if the wafer carrier table 7 is driven by the relative position h previously obtained from the position where the wafer 1 is detected, the height of the wafer 1 becomes as shown in FIG. Become.

When the fingers 12 are inserted into the wafer carrier 6, a relative value h'is created by adding a margin value to the relative value h found to prevent contact with the back surface of the wafer, and this is used in this embodiment. May be.

Further, the detector 13 of the present invention may be of a type that measures the electrical resistance between the finger 12 and the knife edge 10, or a type that measures the output of a pressure sensor connected to the knife edge 10. obtain.

[0017]

[Other Embodiments] In FIG. 6, the wafer position detector is a finger 1.
This is a wafer insertion / ejection device of a type which is attached to the second side and in which the fingers 12 move up and down to detect the positions of the wafers 1 to 5 and carry in / out the wafers.

Reference numeral 15 in FIG. 6 is a mechanism for taking in and out the finger 12, and 16 is a finger 1 together with the light emitting element 8 and the light receiving element 9.
2 is an up-and-down mechanism that can move up and down and detect the amount of movement. Other configurations are the same as those in FIGS.

In the configuration of FIG. 6 as well, the difference between the height of the vertical mechanism when the finger 12 is lowered and brought into contact with the knife edge 11 and the height of the vertical mechanism when the knife edge 11 blocks the light beam 10 is obtained. , Wafer detector (light beam 1
The relative position between 0) and the surface of finger 12 can be calculated.
After that, the position of the wafer is detected by driving the up-and-down mechanism 16, and the finger 12 can be moved to the wafer loading / unloading height by driving the detected position downwardly by the relative position calculated.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, by automatically measuring the relative position between the thin plate detecting height by the thin plate position detecting means and the thin plate inserting / extracting finger, the height of both is adjusted or manually. This has the effect of eliminating the need for measurement.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing the configuration of a wafer insertion / ejection device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a diagram showing finger height measurement in the apparatus of FIG. 1. FIG.

FIG. 3 is a view showing height measurement of a wafer position detecting device in the device of FIG.

4 is a diagram showing a wafer position detection state in the apparatus of FIG.

5 is a diagram showing a finger height setting state in the apparatus of FIG.

FIG. 6 is a conceptual diagram showing another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 to 5: wafer, 6: wafer carrier, 7: wafer carrier stand, 8: light emitting element, 9: light receiving element, 10: light beam, 11: knife edge, 12: finger, 13: contact detector, 15: finger And the mechanism for moving the finger and the wafer detector up and down, h: the relative position between the finger 12 and the light beam 10.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A finger for inserting and removing a thin plate into and from the thin plate storage box, a means for moving the thin plate storage box and the finger relatively up and down, and a relative height between the finger and the finger arranged at a constant position. A means for detecting the height position of the thin plate in the thin plate storage box, a means for detecting the relative height between the finger and the thin plate detection position by the thin plate position detecting means, and a thin plate insertion / ejection based on the detected relative height. And a means for correcting the amount of ascending / descending by the ascending / descending means at the time. 2. The relative height detection means, a knife edge attached to a base for fixing the thin plate storage box, a means for detecting that the knife edge has crossed the thin plate detection position, and the knife edge. 2. The thin plate inserting / extracting device according to claim 1, further comprising means for detecting that a finger touches the finger.