JPH11292281A - Support frame for wafer line - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To smoothly separate a wafer from a wafer line by preventing the wafer from falling sideways. SOLUTION: A wafer line Wa is supported on support tubes 1 of support shafts 2, 3 and 4 by placing a fixing member onto receiving seats, the wafer line Wa is locked by moving a locking shaft 10 to the locking position A, and the fixing member 5 is removed from the wafer line Wa. One endmost wafer W is sucked by suckers 29 and moved horizontally leftward as shown in Fig. Therefore, the wafer W climbs over the support tube 1 of the support shaft 2, turned by taking the tube 1 as a support point so as to be twisted, and forcibly extracted from between the support tube 1 of the support shaft 2 and a locking tube 9. The twist rotation of the wafer W facilities the separation of the wafer W from the wafer line Wa. Since the wafer is transported in a state where the fixing member faces upward, it can be prevented from falling sideways.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a support frame suitable for supporting a row of wafers bonded to a fixing member with an adhesive, and peeling one wafer constituting the row of wafers from the row of wafers. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when manufacturing a wafer of a semiconductor material, a magnetic material, a ceramic, or the like, these materials are adhered to a fixed member in an ingot state, and thereafter, a vertical direction in a length direction is utilized using a wire saw. Slicing the ingot from below in the direction has been performed.

Normally, slicing by a wire saw is performed until a part of the fixing member is reached, and the ingot is completely cut off at each part. However, since wafers formed by slicing are directly adhered to the fixing member, fixing is performed. The row of wafers is configured and left integrated without leaving the component.

[0004] Conventionally, the operation of peeling a wafer from the above-mentioned row of wafers is performed by inverting the fixing member and the ingot (wafer row) from the slice state of the ingot, so that the bonding portion between the fixing member and the wafer row is heated to an adhesive softening temperature. For example,
It is immersed in warm water maintained at 90 to 95 ° C. to soften the adhesive.

[0005]

In the case of a conventional wafer having a diameter of about 8 inches, the above-mentioned method can be used to peel the wafer without any trouble. However, in the case of a large and heavy new wafer having a diameter as large as 12 inches, the fixing part is turned upside down from a slice state with the wafer row down, and the adhesive part is turned upside down by a hot water bath. When or after inserting the wafer, the wafer is easily bent by its own weight and falls down in the thickness direction, and it is difficult to peel the wafer without any trouble using the conventional methods and apparatuses.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a support frame that can support a row of wafers while preventing the wafer from falling down. Another object of the present invention is to provide a support frame that can smoothly peel one wafer from a row of wafers. Another object of the present invention is to provide a support frame for a wafer row having a simple structure.

[0007]

The present invention employs the following constitution in order to solve at least one of the above-mentioned problems. That is, the support frame of the wafer row according to claim 1 is:
A pair of side plates are attached to both ends of a support member that supports the wafer row adhered to the fixing member substantially horizontally,
Between the pair of side plates, the outer peripheral surface of the wafer row is pressed toward the substantially center of the wafer row on an extension of a straight line connecting the front end of the support member and the substantially center of the wafer row supported by the support member. A locking member for locking the row is provided on the outer peripheral surface of the wafer row so as to be able to freely contact and separate.

In this configuration, the row of wafers adhered to the fixing member is supported substantially horizontally on the supporting member with the fixing member facing upward, and locked by the locking member. In this locked state,
Since each wafer is hung below the fixing member and its center of gravity is below the fixing member, unlike the case where the center of gravity of the wafer is above the fixing member, it does not fall down sideways. Each of the wafers is sucked by, for example, a suction disk, pulled out from between the front end portion of the support member and the locking member, which is located substantially at the diameter of the wafer, in the surface direction of the wafer, and separated from the row of wafers.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided the wafer frame supporting frame according to the first aspect, wherein the front end of the supporting member is disposed slightly above the bottom point of the wafer array. It is a feature.

According to this configuration, when the wafer is moved in the plane direction and peeled from the row of wafers, the wafer gets over the front end of the support member and is turned and extracted in a twisted manner with respect to the row of wafers. Therefore, the wafer is smoothly separated from the wafer row. Also, if the wafer is
It does not easily come off between the front end of the support member and the locking member due to vibration or the like.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a support frame.
In the support frame of the wafer row described above, a tube made of a flexible material such as a brush or rubber is used for at least a front end portion of the support member and the locking member.

According to this structure, when the wafer is moved in the plane direction and peeled from the wafer row, the front end portion of the support member and the flexible material tubes of the locking member elastically support the wafer, respectively. , And also elastically escape.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the support frame for a wafer row according to any one of the first to third aspects, the locking member is attached to both side plates via an urging spring. It is a feature.

In this configuration, the locking member presses the outer peripheral surface of the wafer row by the urging force of the urging spring. The structure for attaching the locking member to the side plate is the simplest, and there are few failures and the operability is improved.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the support frame of the wafer row according to any one of the first to fourth aspects, a receiving seat for receiving a fixing member of the wafer row is formed at an upper portion of both side plates. It is characterized by the following.

In this configuration, the seat formed on the side plate receives the load of the fixing member above the row of wafers. Therefore, the load of the fixing member is not applied to the wafer row.

[0017]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The support frame F according to the present invention includes a support shaft 2 having a circular cross section in which a cylindrical support tube 1 is fitted.
A pair of left and right side plates 6 and 7 are bolted to both ends of
a, and a locking shaft 10 fitted with a locking tube 9 is provided between the side plates 6 and 7. The support shafts 2, 3, and 4 are fixed at approximately 7 o'clock of the timepiece, approximately 5 o'clock, and 3 o'clock symmetrical thereto in a side view of the support frame F, and the locking shaft 10 faces the support shaft 2. It is provided so as to be movable at a position of about 1 o'clock. Support shafts 2, 3, 4 and locking shaft 10, and side plate 6,
7 are parallel to each other.

Each support tube 1 of the support shafts 2, 3, 4 is
Wafer row Wa in contact with the outer peripheral surface of wafer row Wa
And are fixed to the support shafts 2, 3, and 4, respectively. The support shafts 2, 3, and 4 and the support tube 1 fitted thereto constitute a support member. The support shaft 2 is a front end portion (extraction end) of the support member, and as described above, approximately 7 degrees slightly higher than the bottom point T of the wafer row Wa.
It is located at the hour position.

The locking shaft 10 is attached to the side plates 6 and 7 by a pair of biasing springs 11, and each support tube 1
The outer peripheral surface of the wafer row Wa supported by the supporting member 2 is pushed toward the support shaft 2 by a predetermined amount with a locking tube 9 to lock the wafer row Wa with an appropriate force. The biasing spring 11 is stretched between the latches 6a and 7a of the side plates 6 and 7 and the end of the locking shaft 10, and pulls the locking shaft 10 until the locking shaft 10 comes into contact with the side plates 6 and 7. And the movement of the locking shaft 10 from the locking position A (FIG. 2) to the retracted position B is enabled. The locking shaft 10 and the locking tube 9 fixed thereto constitute a locking member.

The side plates 6 and 7 are formed substantially in a C-shape (including an inverted C-shape), and upper portions thereof are provided with seats 6b and 7b of a fixing member 21 to which the wafer row Wa is adhered, and lower portions. Lower constricted legs 6c and 7c are provided. On the outer surfaces of the upper portions of the side plates 6 and 7, bolts 14
Installed with. The legs 6c and 7c are fixed to the fixture 2.
The support frame F is fixed on the mounting table 25 by being fitted from above into a space surrounded by 3, 24, 25, 25 (only the front side is shown in FIG. 2). The receiving tool 13 is used when the support frame F is transferred by a robot or an operator.

Reference numeral 29 denotes a suction disk. The suction cup 29
The wafer W at the extreme end of the wafer row Wa is vacuum-sucked, and can be moved in the surface direction of the wafer W (the left-right direction in FIG. 2) by moving means (not shown) such as a cylinder. . The suction disk 29 is connected to a vacuum suction source (not shown).

Next, the operation of the above-structured support frame for a row of wafers according to the present invention will be described. The wafer row Wa formed by slicing with a wire saw is transported by a robot or the like in an as-is state, that is, with the fixing member 21 up, and the support frame F in which the locking shaft 10 is previously set at the retreat position B is set.
Of the fixing member 5 on the receiving seats 6b and 7b of
4 is supported by the support tube 1.

In the above state, the worker moves the locking shaft 10 to the locking position A to lock the wafer row Wa in cooperation with the support shafts 2, 3, and 4. Remove. At this time, if necessary, the adhesive is softened with warm water at 90 to 95 ° C. to facilitate removal of the fixing member 5.

After removing the fixing member 21, the support frame F on which the wafer row Wa is mounted as described above is carried by the robot or the operator onto the mounting table 27, and the leg portions 6 of the side plates 6 and 7 are moved.
b, 7b are fitted and fixed in the spaces of the fixtures 23, 24, 25, 25. Since the legs 6b and 7b are in a constricted shape, the transfer can be performed accurately and smoothly.

In order to separate the wafer W from the row of wafers Wa mounted on the support frame F, the suction plate 29 is brought close to the wafer W at the end of the row of wafers Wa, and the wafer W is sucked. The suction plate 29 is horizontally moved to the left in FIG.

In this case, the wafer W sucked by the suction disk 29 gets over the support tube 1 of the support shaft 2 at the front end by the above-mentioned movement of the suction disk 29, and the support tube 1
Is pivoted around the wafer row Wa so as to be twisted with respect to the wafer row Wa to release the lock between the support tube 1 of the support shaft 2 and the lock tube 9 of the lock shaft 10 and to forcibly extract it. The twist rotation of the wafer W with the support tube 1 of the support shaft 2 as a fulcrum facilitates peeling of the wafer W from the wafer row Wa. Further, since the support shaft 2 is located at a position slightly higher than the bottom point T of the wafer row Wa supported by them, the wafer W does not fall out of the support frame F due to a small external force such as vibration.

The locking shaft 10 in the figure has a structure in which the outer peripheral surface of the wafer row is pushed toward the center thereof on an extension of a straight line connecting the support shaft 2 at the front end and the center of the wafer row Wa. The position may be slightly shifted in the 12:00 or 3 o'clock direction in FIG. The number of supporting shafts is not limited to the number shown in the figure, and may be two or four or more. Energizing spring 1
1 is, besides being directly stretched between the end of the locking shaft 10 and the latches 6a, 7a as shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 3, is attached to the end of the locking shaft 10 as shown in FIG. The lever 10a may be fixed and stretched between the latches 6a and 7a. Further, each of the tubes 1 and 9, particularly the support tube 1 and the locking tube 9 of the support shaft 2, is preferably made of rubber having a large frictional resistance and a soft contact, a material having the same effect as this, or a flexible material such as a brush. preferable.

[0028]

As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained. (A) According to the support frame of the wafer row according to claim 1,
The row of wafers adhered below the fixed member can be supported by the support member and locked by the locking member. In this supporting state, each wafer is hung below the fixing member and its center of gravity is below the fixing member, so that it does not fall down sideways and bend locally. Also,
Since each wafer is supported at a predetermined position in a predetermined posture, one wafer can be smoothly separated from the row of wafers.

(B) According to the supporting frame of the wafer row according to the second aspect, in addition to the effect of the above (a), when the wafer is moved in the plane direction over the front end of the supporting member by a suction disk or the like. Since the wafer is turned around the front end of the support member so as to be twisted with respect to the row of wafers, the wafer is easily and smoothly separated from the row of wafers. In addition, even when a small external force such as vibration is applied to the wafer, the wafer does not easily climb over the front end of the support member and come off without permission.

(C) According to the supporting frame of the wafer row according to the third aspect, in addition to the above effects, the front end of the supporting member and each tube of the flexible material of the locking member elastically support the wafer. In addition, since the wafer is elastically pulled out, the wafer can be more smoothly separated from the row of wafers and taken out.

(D) According to the supporting frame of the wafer row according to the fourth aspect, in addition to the above-mentioned effects, the mounting structure of the locking member to the side plate becomes very simple, and a failure hardly occurs.
In addition, an effect that is easy to operate occurs.

(E) According to the supporting frame of the wafer row according to the fifth aspect, in addition to the above-mentioned effects, the seat formed on the side plate receives the fixing member on the wafer row, and the load of the fixing member is reduced. Since the wafers are not placed in rows, each wafer is not tilted by the fixing member.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a partially broken front view showing an embodiment of a support frame of a wafer row according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a partially cutaway side view of the support frame of FIG.

FIG. 3 is also a plan view.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view showing a mounting state of a receiving member to a side plate.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 support tube 2, 3, 4 support shaft 6, 7 side plate 6 b, 7 b seat 6 c, 7 c leg 9 locking tube 10 locking shaft 11 biasing spring 13 receiver A locking position B retreat position F support frame Wa Wafer row W Wafer T Bottom point

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A pair of side plates are respectively attached to both ends of a support member for supporting a wafer row adhered to a fixing member substantially horizontally, and a front end of the support member and a support member supported between the pair of side plates. A locking member for locking the wafer row by pressing the outer peripheral surface of the wafer row substantially in the direction of the center of the wafer row on an extension of a straight line connecting substantially the center of the wafer row that has been brought into contact with and separating from the outer peripheral face of the wafer row. A support frame for a wafer row, which is provided freely. 2. The support frame according to claim 1, wherein a front end of the support member is disposed slightly above a bottom point of the wafer row. 3. The support frame for a wafer row according to claim 1, wherein a tube made of a flexible material such as a brush or rubber is used for at least a front end portion of the support member and the locking member. 4. The supporting frame for a wafer row according to claim 1, wherein the locking members are attached to both side plates via biasing springs. 5. The supporting frame for a wafer row according to claim 1, wherein a receiving seat for receiving a fixing member of the wafer row is formed on an upper portion of both side plates.