JPS6057948A - Conveyor for wafer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the damage of a wafer and the damage of a valve for a device by mounting a rail member onto an inclined carrying path-surface while a projecting and withdrawing piece projecting or with-drawing in response to the inclination of a movable base is istalled to a wafer loading surface for the movable base. CONSTITUTION:Rigid metallic rails 21 are laid on the surface 20 of an inclined carrying path, and a wafer is brought to the state in which the wafer is floated approximately from the path surface 20 and a friction coefficient between both the wafer and the path surface is reduced extremely. Consequently, the wafer is not sucked or attached to the path surface 20 and is not stopped and positively slides on the path surface. The end section of the wafer 1 received by a movable base 7 is pushed up by a projecting and withdrawing piece 22 slightly projecting from a wafer loading surface 16 through a movement in the right direction of a weight 25, and a friction coefficient between the wafer and the loading surface 16 is reduced extremely. Accordingly, the wafer 1 on the movable base 7 responds to the inclination of the base and the pushing action of a damper 19 very smoothly and starts sliding, and no impact is applied to the wafer 1.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] Technical Field> The present invention relates to a transporting device for sea urchin that uses an inclined transport path and a movable table to sequentially transport the sea urchin to each processing chamber, such as an ion implantation device. The present invention relates to a wafer conveying device suitable for use in an electron beam annealing device.

<Prior Art> Generally, wafer metal used in semiconductor devices is fed into an ion implantation device or an electron beam annealing device for ion implantation and annealing treatment. Conventionally, urethane fed into these devices is sequentially conveyed through each processing chamber as shown in FIG. 1, for example.

That is, when the wafer 1 enters the intermediate vacuum chamber 4 from the upper carrier 2 while sliding on the inclined transport path (slider) 3 (see Figure 2), the pulp (inlet) of the chamber is closed and the chamber is evacuated. It is done.

When the chamber reaches a medium vacuum level, the valve connected to the firebox 6 is opened, and the wafer 1 slides on the slider 5 and enters the wafer processing chamber 6 in a high vacuum state, and the movable table (processing table) 7 (see Fig. 3). ) is accepted.

When the wafer 1 is moved to the movable table 7, the processing chambers 4 and 6 are separated by closing the valve, and then the movable table 7 is tilted clockwise in the figure and the wafer 1 is subjected to processing such as ion implantation or annealing at the position 9. will be held. At the same time, the lower intermediate vacuum chamber 12 is evacuated to a medium vacuum level in order to receive the processed wafer 1.

When the processing of the wafer 1 is completed and the intermediate vacuum chamber 12 reaches a predetermined vacuum state, the valve between the processing chamber 6 and the vacuum chamber 12 is opened, and at the same time, the movable table 7 is tilted clockwise to the position 10 in the figure. The wafer 1 is pushed out by the damper of the movable table 7, which will be described later, and slides on the slider 11 to the next intermediate vacuum chamber 12.
The valve closes and the chamber is separated from the processing chamber 6. Thereafter, the intermediate vacuum chamber 12 is returned to atmospheric pressure and communicated with the external lower carrier 14 by opening a valve, and the wafer 1 slides on the slider 13 and enters the carrier 14.

In this way, the wafer 1 is placed on the inclined conveyance path (slider) 3.5
．． 11 and 13, and are sent to the processing chamber one by one, and are temporarily held in the processing chamber 6 for processing by a movable table 7, and the direction of conveyance thereof is changed.

However, since the wafer 1 becomes electrically charged when subjected to ion implantation or other processing in the processing chamber 6, the inclined transport path, that is, the road surface 15 of the slider (3, 5, 11, 13) (see FIG. 2)
There is a risk that the wafer may be electrostatically attracted to the wafer mounting surface 16 (see FIG. 3) of the movable table 7 and stopped there. If the wafer 1 is attracted to the road surface 15 of the slider and comes to rest, the wafer 1 will be caught in the valve that separates the image processing chambers, and the wafer 1 and the valve will be damaged. In particular, if a valve breaks, it can take anywhere from a few hours to over 10 hours to re-evacuate, creating a major problem in which the equipment, which costs hundreds of millions of yen, becomes unusable.

Further, when the wafer 1 is attracted to the wafer mounting surface 16 of the movable table 7, the weight 17 is moved to the bar 18 according to the inclination of the movable table 17.
When the wafer 1 is moved to the right in the figure and the wafer 1 is pushed out by simultaneously moving the damper 19 in the same direction, the wafer 1
Since the wafer 1 does not move, the impact causes the wafer 1 to
There was a problem with it being damaged.

<Purpose> The present invention has been made in view of such conventional problems, and
The purpose of this is to prevent damage to the wafers and valves of the equipment by providing a rail member on the sloping conveyance path and providing a retractable piece on the wafer mounting surface of the movable table that retracts and retracts according to the slope of the rigging. The object of the present invention is to provide a wafer transport device that can perform the following tasks.

<Example> The present invention will be explained in detail below based on the drawings.

FIGS. 4A and 4B are an external perspective view and a side view of an inclined conveyance path (slider) used in the wafer conveyance apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a side view of the same movable table.

The basic structure of the wafer transport device according to the present invention is as follows.
Although it is the same as the conveyance device shown in the figure, two rails 21 are provided particularly on the road surface of the inclined conveyance path 20 in the conveyance direction of Ueno-1. This rail 21 is made of a hard metal rail so as not to be scraped by the wafer 1, and is provided to reduce the coefficient of friction between the wafer 1 and the conveying surface. Note that the shape of the rail members 21 should be such that the coefficient of friction between the wafer 1 and the conveying surface can be reduced, so that round-headed members may be arranged at predetermined intervals in the conveying direction.

Furthermore, two grooves are provided in the center of the wafer mounting surface 16 of the movable table 7 in parallel to the direction of conveyance of the wafer 1, and these grooves reach the bottom of the movable table 7.

In these grooves, there are retractable pieces 22 shaped as shown in the figure.
is inserted, its base is rotatably supported on the shaft 23 of the movable table 7, and is normally biased counterclockwise by a spring 24, so that its tip end is attached to the movable table 7 as shown by the dotted line in the figure. It is sunk below the wafer mounting surface 16 of. And bar 1
Another weight 25 provided at 8 moves to the right in the figure, and when the protruding/retracting piece 22 receives the pressing force, it rotates clockwise as shown by the solid line, and its tip slightly protrudes from the wafer mounting surface 16. It is formed like this.

A hard metal rail is laid on the road surface 15, and the wafer is almost lifted off the road surface 15, so that the coefficient of friction between the two is extremely small. Therefore, the wafer reliably slides on the road surface 15 without adhering to or adhering to it and stopping.

Furthermore, when the wafer 1 received by the movable table 7 is sent out by the damper 19 while tilting to the right in the figure, the wafer 1 slightly protrudes from the wafer mounting surface 16 due to the rightward movement of the weight 25. The end portion is pushed up by the piece 22, so that the coefficient of friction with the mounting surface 16 is extremely small.

Therefore, the wafer 1 on the movable table 7 begins to slide extremely smoothly in response to the inclination of the rigging and the suppressing action of the damper 19, and no impact is applied to the wafer 1.

It is preferable that the leading end of the wafer 1 be lifted up by the retractable piece 22 before being pushed by the damper 19. Therefore, in order to make this timing accurate, it would be more effective to use an electronic mechanical mechanism or the like instead of the weight 25 in the embodiment.

<Effects> As described above, in the wafer conveyance apparatus of the present invention, a rail member is provided on the inclined conveyance path surface that connects each processing chamber, and the movable table is configured to move the wafers according to the inclination direction of the rigging. Since a retractable piece that retracts from the mounting surface is provided, damage to the wafer and equipment can be prevented.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is a diagram showing the structure of the conventional device, Figures 2 (a) and (b) are diagrams showing the structure of the slider of the same device, Figure 3 is a diagram showing the structure of the movable base, and Figure 4 ( A) and (B) are diagrams showing the structure of the inclined conveyance path (slider) of the apparatus of the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the structure of the movable table. 7 is a movable table, 16 is a wafer mounting surface, 20 is an inclined transport path, 21 is a rail member, 22 is a retractable piece, 25 is a weight, agent: patent attorney Yoshihiko Fukushi (and 2 others) θ 0

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of processing chambers are connected by an inclined conveyance path, and the wafer is slid on this conveyance path to be fed into each processing chamber, and at least one of the processing chambers has an upper In a wafer transfer device, a movable table is provided to receive wafers sent from one processing chamber, and the movable table is tilted to send the received wafers to the next processing chamber. A rail member is provided on an inclined conveyance road surface that connects the wafer, and the movable table is provided with a retractable piece that retracts and retracts from the wafer mounting surface depending on the inclination direction of the table. Device.