Wafer counter having device for aligning wafers
AssigneeTokyo Electron Sagami Limited
InventorsTakanobu Asano, Katsumi Ishii
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A wafer counter device comprising a system for aligning the orientation flats of plural wafers in a cassette with one another and a system provided with optical sensors for detecting whether or not the wafers are present in the cassette and serving to count the number of the wafers in the cassette on the basis of the result detected by the optical sensors. The wafers aligning system includes aligning rollers contacted with the rims of the wafers to rotate the wafers, a system for lifting the aligning rollers in such a way that the rollers can be contacted with the rims of the wafers, and a motor for rotating the aligning rollers.
Claims9
A wafer counter device for counting wafers having orientation flats denoting an orientation of said wafer, comprising:
- wafer aligning means for aligning orientation flats of a plurality of aligned wafers with one another;
- and
- counting means having a non-contact type sensor for detecting the aligned wafers, said counting means counting the number of wafers based on a result of a non-contact detection of the aligned wafers performed by said non-contact type sensor;
- wherein said wafer aligning means comprises a pair of aligning rollers disposed in parallel to abut against a periphery of a wafer to rotate said wafer, and rotating means for rotating said aligning rollers, wherein an annular groove is formed in a portion of each of said aligning rollers which abuts against the periphery of the wafer.
A wafer counter device for counting wafers having orientation flats denoting an orientation of said wafer, comprising:
- wafer aligning means for aligning orientation flats of a plurality of aligned wafers with one another;
- and
- counting means having a non-contact type sensor for detecting the aligned wafers, said counting means counting the number of wafers based on a result of a non-contact detection of the aligned wafers performed by said non-contact type sensor;
- wherein said wafer aligning means comprises a pair of aligning rollers disposed in parallel to abut against a periphery of a wafer to rotate said wafer, and rotating means for rotating said aligning rollers, wherein an annular groove is formed in a portion of each of said aligning rollers which abuts against the periphery of the wafer;
- and wherein said aligning rollers are disposed on both sides of said wafer counting means;
- and
- said wafer counting device further comprising means provided with a pair of lift members for pushing wafers upward, said lift members being mounted on both sides of said pair of aligning rollers.
A wafer counter device for counting wafers having orientation flats denoting an orientation of said wafer, comprising:
- wafer aligning means for aligning orientation flats of a plurality of aligned wafers with one another;
- and
- counting means having a non-contact type sensor for detecting the aligned wafers, said counting means counting the number of wafers based on a result of a non-contact detection of the aligned wafers performed by said non-contact type sensor;
- wherein said wafer aligning means comprises a pair of aligning rollers disposed in parallel to abut against a periphery of a wafer to rotate said wafer, and rotating means for rotating said aligning rollers, wherein an annular groove is formed in a portion of each of said aligning rollers which abuts against the periphery of the wafer;
- and
- wherein an edge surface of the periphery of said wafer abuts against a bottom surface of said annular groove.b 51834984.002
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.