JPS62140957A - Cassette translocating device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a cassette to be continuously translocated by providing a throw in side reversing device and a collecting side reversing device for reversing a cassette respectively which are provided in between a holding device for holding said cassette and a conveying device for conveying said cassette. CONSTITUTION:When a cassette 1 on a support table 23a is held by a holding device 4, the following cassette 1 is placed on the table 23a by a conveying device 21. At this time, a semiconductor silicone wafer 2 is translocated from the inside of the cassette 1 to the up and down rails 6, 7 of a guide member 5 by means of a push-up rod 8. After the translocation is completed, the cassette 1 is placed on a support table 24a from the holding device 4. When it is necessary for the cassettes 1 on the support tables 23a, 24a to be reversed, these cassettes 1 can be 180 deg. reversed by means of a throw-in side reversing device 23 and a collecting side reversing device 24. Accordingly, when a cassette is to be reversed, a throw-in side reversing device 23 is used to hold the cassette with a holding device 4, and the collecting side reversing device 24 is used to collect the cassette, carrying out a translocating operation continuously.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a cassette transfer device suitable for use when performing diffusion treatment on disk-shaped members such as semiconductor silicon wafers and glass wafers.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, this type of cassette transfer device has been constructed as shown in FIG. To explain this based on the same figure, 1
is a cassette used for transporting a disk-shaped semiconductor silicon wafer 2 between processes, and is rotatably held by a holding device 14 that is open on both sides and moves within a predetermined stroke on a moving rail 3. Inside this cassette 1, a large number of narrow grooves 1a and lb are formed to support semiconductor silicon wafers 2 in a freely insertable and removable manner. Reference numeral 5 denotes a guide member for guiding the peripheral edge of the semiconductor silicon wafer 2, which consists of two upper and lower rails 6.7 each having a guide groove 6a, 7a facing each other in its opening, and is connected to the holding device 4 and the diffusion boat ( (not shown). Guide grooves 6a, 7a of this guide member 5
are inclined from the cassette 1 toward the rising portions 6b, 7b. Reference numeral 8 denotes an L-shaped push-up rod, which is disposed near the holding device 4, and is used to push up the semiconductor silicon wafers 2 in the cassette 1 by a drive device (not shown) during wafer alignment. It is configured to push up to 7b.

Reference numeral 9 denotes a reversing device for reversing the cassette 1, which has a disk-shaped support base 9a and is disposed below the push-up rod 8. 10 is the cassette 1 after wafer transfer has been completed.
This is a recovery station on which the reversing device 9 is placed, and is disposed near the reversing device 9.

In the cassette transfer device configured in this way,
By rotating the reversing device 9 by 180 degrees, the support stand 9a
The cassette 1 placed thereon can be inverted and the transfer operation can be performed automatically.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

By the way, in this type of cassette transfer device, when the transfer of the semiconductor silicon wafer 2 to the diffusion boat (not shown) is completed, the cassette 1 is placed directly on the recovery station 10, and the cassette 1 is placed in the reversing device once. 9 support stand 9a
Some are placed upside down and placed on the collection station 10.

That is, the shape of the cassette 1 is not symmetrical, and therefore, when the cassette 1 is transported to the next process, it is necessary to align its orientation to avoid confusion in the next process.

As a result, when the cassette 1 is held in an inverted state in the holding device 4, the next cassette 1 is held in the holding device 4 until this cassette 1 is placed on the collection station IO.
There was a problem in that a large amount of time was spent transferring the semiconductor silicon wafer 2 because the semiconductor silicon wafer 2 could not be held properly.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a cassette transfer device that can efficiently perform cassette transfer operations.

[Means for solving problems]

A cassette transfer device according to the present invention includes a holding device for holding a cassette, which has a large number of narrow grooves formed inside the holding device for removably supporting a disc-shaped member, and a holding device arranged near the holding device so as to be able to move forward and backward. The apparatus is provided with a transport device for transporting the cassettes, and an input-side reversing device and a recovery-side reversing device for reversing the cassettes, which are disposed between the transport device and the holding device.

[Function] In the present invention, when reversing a cassette, the input-side reversing device can be used to hold the cassette in the holding device, and the input-side reversing device can be used to collect the cassette. Can be done continuously.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a cassette transfer device according to the present invention. In this figure, the same members as those in FIG. In the same figure, the reference numeral 21 denotes a gripper 2 for gripping the cassette 1.
2, which is disposed in the vicinity of the holding device 4 so as to be movable forward and backward, and is configured to convey the cassette 1 between a reversing device and a stocker (not shown), which will be described later. . Reference numerals 23 and 24 denote an input-side reversing device and a recovery-side reversing device for reversing the cassette l, respectively, which have disk-shaped supports 23a and 24a, and are disposed between the holding device 4 and the conveying device 21. has been done. Note that 25 is a guide rail that is arranged parallel to the moving rail 3 and guides the conveying device 21.

In the cassette transfer device configured in this way,
When the cassette 1 on the support stand 23a is held by the holding device 4, the next cassette 1 containing the semiconductor silicon wafer 2 is placed on the support stand 23a by the transfer device 21. At this time, the semiconductor silicon wafer 2 is pushed up from inside the cassette 1 by the push-up rod 8 onto the upper and lower rails 6 of the guide member 5.
．． It can be moved to 7. When the transfer of the semiconductor silicon wafer 2 is completed, the holding device 4 transfers the semiconductor silicon wafer 2 to the support stand 24.
A cassette l is placed on a. At this time, the support stand 23
If it is necessary to invert the cassette 1 on the cassettes 24a and 24a, it can be inverted by 180° using the inverting device 24 on the input side or the inverting device 24 on the recovery side.

Therefore, when reversing the cassette 1, the input-side reversing device 23 can be used to hold the cassette 1 in the holding device 4, and the retrieval-side reversing device 24 can be used when retrieving the cassette 1, thereby reducing the work of transferring the cassette 1. Can be done continuously.

Although this embodiment shows an example in which one transport device 21 performs two collections of the cassettes 1, the present invention is not limited to this.
Of course, separate conveyance devices may be used.

Further, in this embodiment, a semiconductor silicon wafer 2 is used as the disk-shaped member, but the present invention may be applied to a disk-shaped member such as a glass wafer.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, since the input-side reversing device and the collection-side reversing device are provided between the holding device that holds the cassette and the conveying device that transports the cassette and that reverses the cassette, the cassette When reversing the cassette, an input-side reversing device can be used to hold the cassette in a holding device, and a retrieval-side reversing device can be used when recovering the cassette.

Therefore, the cassettes can be continuously transferred, and the transfer operation can be carried out efficiently.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a cassette transfer device according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a conventional cassette transfer device. 1...Cassette, LA, LB...Small groove, 2...
...Semiconductor silicon wafer, 3...Movement rail, 4
...Holding device, 21...Transfer device, 23...
- Input side reversing device, 24...Recovery side reversing device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A holding device that is movable forward and backward on a moving rail and holds a cassette having a number of narrow grooves formed therein to support disk-shaped members in a freely insertable and removable manner; A cassette transfer device comprising: a conveying device for conveying the cassette; and an input-side reversing device and a recovery-side reversing device disposed between the conveying device and the holding device and reversing the cassette. .