JPS61173849A - Article conveying system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To aim at enhancing the rate of operation, at preventing erroneous processing, and at realizing a complete unmanned operation, by selecting articles in a buffer device in accordance with the data of a center adjusting mechanism which controls and grasps the processing condition of the articles in each of plural manufacturing facilities, and by sending the articles to the corresponding facilities. CONSTITUTION:When an article 3 arrives at a buffer device 15, the kind thereof is determined, and then a group management controller 18 judges whether the article may be fed to the line of manufacturing facilities 12a through 12n to be processed or not. If it is so, the article 3 is stored in the buffer device 15 as an article to be processed while if it is not, an instruction is delivered to the buffer device in order to feed the article 3 to a manufacturing line in another process. When the article 3 to be processed is stored in the buffer device 15, the controller 18 enquires the processing conditions of all manufacturing facilities 12a through 12n to grasp the processing conditions. Further, the controller 18 performs the matching between the article 3 and the manufacturing facilities 12a through 12n. Thus, no jamming of articles in the manufacturing facilities and no useless feed among the manufacturing facilities are effected, and therefore, the article may be conveyed with a high degree of efficiency to enhance the rate of operation of the facilities.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to an article conveyance system in an article manufacturing factory such as a semiconductor manufacturing factory.

A manufacturing line for products such as semiconductor wafers that has multiple manufacturing steps has multiple manufacturing equipment arranged in series, and the products are manufactured by being transported to each manufacturing equipment sequentially or selectively. is common.

In such an article manufacturing line, indexes of a plurality of manufacturing facilities often differ, and in such cases, a buffer device is generally used to temporarily store the articles supplied to the manufacturing facilities.

For example, the PR process for semiconductor wafer manufacturing includes the process of applying resist material to the semiconductor wafer, aligning and exposing the applied resist material, developing the exposed resist material, and etching the remaining resist material as a mask. It consists of various steps, and the processing conditions for each of these steps vary depending on the type of semiconductor wafer. For example, in the resist material coating process, the type of solvent for the resist material, the viscosity of the resist material, the number of rotations of the semiconductor wafer during resist material application, etc. differ depending on the type of semiconductor wafer, so it is necessary to apply multiple types of resist materials depending on the type of semiconductor wafer. Manufacturing equipment is arranged in series to transport semiconductor wafers to the manufacturing equipment according to their type. Semiconductor wafers are supplied to such manufacturing equipment in units of product lofts using carriers in which a plurality of semiconductor wafers are arranged and stored, or boxes in which a plurality of these carriers are stored.

On the other hand, semiconductor wafers are required to be manufactured in a clean air atmosphere, and therefore, recent semiconductor wafer manufacturing factories are becoming increasingly unmanned.

This unmanned system is achieved by using self-propelled vehicles to transport semiconductor wafers, and by using robots to transfer semiconductor wafers between the self-propelled vehicles and buffer devices and manufacturing equipment. A specific example of this will be explained below with reference to the conventional article conveyance system example shown in FIG.

(1) in FIG. 3 is a floor transport path in a semiconductor wafer manufacturing factory, and an unmanned inter-process self-propelled vehicle (2) runs along this floor transport path (1). Self-propelled car (2)
For example, the article (3) shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 is placed and conveyed.

(4) in article (3) is a plurality of semiconductor wafers (5
) (5) - A carrier for storing the - arrayed at a predetermined pitch;
) is two carriers (4) (
The box (6) is the lid of the box (5), and the inside of the box (6) is kept in a clean air atmosphere.
) (5) -- By storing and transporting the carrier (4) (4) in which the semiconductor wafers are aligned and supported, the cleanliness of the semiconductor wafer is maintained at a high level. (8) is a buffer device installed at a fixed position along the floor conveyance path (1), (9) is a self-propelled vehicle (2)
This is a transfer machine that receives and transfers the article (3) between the buffer device (8) and the buffer device (8). Buffer device (8) is a plurality of articles (3)
(3) It has a shelf structure for storing items in a row. (10
a) to (Ion) are a plurality of types of manufacturing equipment arranged in series on the negative side of the buffer device (8), and are, for example, a plurality of types of resist material coating machines in a PR process. (11
) is a buffer device (8) and manufacturing equipment (10a) ~ (1
This is a fully equipped self-propelled vehicle that carries the goods (3) between the two.

The article conveyance system performs the following operations. When the inter-process self-propelled vehicle (2) on the floor conveyance path (1) carries the article (3) from the pre-process of resist material coating and moves to the buffer device (8), the transfer machine (9) ) takes out the article (3) from the self-propelled vehicle (2) and supplies it to the buffer device (8). Such an operation is performed several times, and a plurality of articles (3) are stored in the buffer device (8). On the other hand, the installed capacity of self-propelled vehicles (1
1) self-propels to the buffer device (8), picks up the first row of stored articles (3), and then self-propels to sequentially visit each manufacturing facility (10a) to (10n); Information is sequentially exchanged between the manufacturing equipment (10a) to (10n) as to whether or not the article (3) can be loaded, the article (3) is supplied to the vacant equipment, and then returned to the buffer device (8). , transports the next article (3) in the front row. Also, self-propelled cars (11
) concurrently performs an operation of receiving and collecting an article (3) that has been processed in any of the manufacturing facilities (10a) to (10n) into a buffer device (8). In addition, each manufacturing equipment (IQa) to (Ion) judges whether the type (semiconductor wafer type) of the article (3) supplied from the self-propelled vehicle (11) is a type that can be processed. If the judgment result is OK, the process is performed, and if the judgment result is No, the process is left as is. The processed articles (
3) is sent to the next process by an inter-process self-propelled vehicle (2).

(゛゛゛) The above-mentioned article conveyance system can easily be completely unmanned if multiple manufacturing facilities process the articles under the same conditions, but if there are multiple types of articles and multiple manufacturing facilities The following problem occurs when the processing conditions and indexes of the equipment are different and articles of -type can only be processed with fixed manufacturing equipment.

First, self-propelled vehicles are used to sequentially take out items from the front row of buffer equipment and supply them to vacant manufacturing equipment, but this method does not allow the items to be transferred to manufacturing equipment that meets the processing conditions. Before the product reaches the destination, there may be wasted time as the product is sent back to a manufacturing facility that does not match the processing conditions.
Furthermore, when a manufacturing facility is supplied with an article that does not meet the processing conditions, it has to stop until an article that meets the processing conditions is supplied, resulting in a poor operating rate of the entire manufacturing facility.

Second, self-propelled vehicles take out items sequentially from the buffer device and supply them to manufacturing equipment, regardless of whether the processing conditions match or not. There is a high rate of misidentifying the product type and processing products of a type that should not be processed, which is a factor that reduces the yield of product manufacturing.

Thirdly, when multiple manufacturing facilities are supplied with goods that do not match the processing conditions, they leave them and wait for collection by equipment self-propelled vehicles, but in reality, they try to shorten the time the goods are stagnant at the manufacturing facilities as much as possible. In order to smoothen the transportation of goods between manufacturing facilities, the goods stagnant in the manufacturing facilities are manually collected, making it difficult to achieve complete unmanned operation.

In view of the above-mentioned problems, the present invention has been developed to solve the above-mentioned problems, and is to sequentially distribute and transport articles supplied to a buffer device from the outside to corresponding ones of multiple types of manufacturing equipment. An article transport system that manages and understands the article processing status in each of multiple manufacturing facilities using a central group controller, selects articles in a buffer device based on information from the group controller, and transports them to the corresponding manufacturing facility. I will provide a.

As in the above-mentioned method, by controlling the movement of goods between the buffer device and multiple manufacturing facilities using a central group control controller, the goods can be transferred from the buffer device to appropriate manufacturing facilities that meet the processing conditions and can receive the goods. This makes it easier to improve the operating rate of manufacturing equipment, prevent product processing errors, and make the product manufacturing line completely unmanned.

The present invention will be described below with reference to the system schematic diagram shown in FIG. 1 and the flowchart shown in FIG. 2.

Figure 1 shows the above article (3)' being manufactured using multiple types of manufacturing equipment (12
(13) is a floor conveyance path, (14) is an inter-process self-propelled vehicle that runs on the floor conveyance path (13), and (15) is a system diagram for selectively conveying and recovering from a) to (12n). ) is a buffer device, (16) is a transfer machine that receives and transfers the article (3) between the inter-process self-propelled vehicle (14) and the buffer device (15),
(17) is the buffer device (15) and manufacturing equipment (12a)
An equipment self-propelled vehicle that travels between (12n) and goods (3
) has a passing function. (18) is a group management controller that is a feature of the present invention, and has a built-in computer and controls the transportation of articles between the buffer device (15) and the manufacturing equipment (12a) to (12n).

The group management controller (18) manages the type, number, and storage position of the articles (3) in the buffer device (15), and also monitors the article processing status in each manufacturing facility (12a) to (12n), such as the article being processed. If the process is in progress, how many hours will it take to complete the process? 12n) treated articles (
3) Automatically performs comprehensive control of the entire article transportation, such as issuing a collection command signal. Incidentally, the type of article (3) can be determined by providing a bar code (not shown) on a part of the outer surface of the box (6) or the lid (7) in Fig. 4, and reading this bar code optically. The group management controller (
18) determines the type of article (3) and selects manufacturing equipment (12a) to (12n) that match the processing conditions for that type.

Next, the functions of the group management controller (18) will be explained with reference to the example flowchart shown in FIG.

First, when the article (3) arrives at the buffer device (15),
The type of the article (3) is determined, and the manufacturing equipment (12a)
) to (12n) to be processed by the group management controller (18), and if the judgment result is YES, the product (3) is transferred to the buffer device (15).
) as an article in a processing cylinder, and if No, a command is issued to the buffer device (15) to carry out article (3) to a production line for another process.

Once the processable articles (3) are stored in the buffer device (15), the group management controller (18) then
12a) to (12n), all manufacturing equipment (12a) to (12n) respond to this adjustment, and the group management controller (18) adjusts the processing status of all manufacturing equipment (12a) to (12n).
) to (12fl), the zero-order group management controller (18) monitors the processing status between the article (3) and the manufacturing equipment (12a) to (12n) that can process this article (3). Perform matching. For example, if article (3) is processed only in one manufacturing facility (12a), article (3)
Matching is performed between the manufacturing equipment (12a) and the processing status of the manufacturing equipment (12a), and it is determined whether or not the processing status of the manufacturing equipment (12a) is in a state where it is possible to receive goods.If the judgment result is YES, a goods sending command is issued. A signal is issued to the buffer device (15), while a reservation signal for sending out the article (3) to the designated manufacturing facility (12a) is issued, and the article (3) is transferred from the buffer device (15) to the installed quantity self-propelled vehicle ( 17) to the designated manufacturing facility (12a). In addition, if the manufacturing equipment (12a) is processing articles and cannot accept articles, the article delivery instruction is not given, and the next article arriving at the buffer device (15) or the article already stored in the buffer device (15) is not sent. The above operation is repeated for the next item.

According to the present invention, articles stored in a buffer device are directly transported to a designated facility that matches the processing conditions of multiple types of manufacturing equipment and is capable of accepting articles. This eliminates the stagnation of goods at the factory and the wasteful transfer of goods between manufacturing facilities, allowing the goods to be transported efficiently and further improving the operating rate of the manufacturing equipment. Furthermore, since the group management controller specifies the precedence of the article, the article is not transported to a manufacturing facility with unsuitable processing conditions for processing, and the article manufacturing yield can be improved. Furthermore, since the transport of goods is centrally managed by a group controller, it is easy to achieve complete unmanned operation, especially for semiconductor manufacturing factories that require manufacturing in a clean air atmosphere.
Effective in factories such as drug manufacturing factories and food manufacturing factories.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view showing an example of an apparatus for implementing the system of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart for explaining an example of the operation of the apparatus shown in FIG. FIG. 3 is a schematic plan view showing an example of a conventional article conveyance system, FIG. 4 is a side sectional view showing an example of the article, and FIG. 5 is a sectional view taken along the line A--A in FIG. 4. (3) - Goods, (12a) to (12n) - Manufacturing equipment, (15) - Buffer device, (18) Group management controller.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) When goods supplied from the outside to the buffer device are sequentially distributed and transported to corresponding ones of multiple types of manufacturing equipment, a central group management controller monitors the item processing status in each of the multiple manufacturing equipment. An article conveyance system characterized in that the articles are managed and grasped by the group management controller, and the articles in the buffer device are selected and conveyed to the corresponding manufacturing equipment based on information from the group management controller.