Wafer transport device
AssigneeOlympus Optical Co., Ltd.
InventorsTomoo Kato, Keiji Kimura
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Of a plurality of wafers (15) circumferential edge portions of which are held by slot grooves (14) of a wafer cassette (13), the positions of a wafer (15) to be transferred and the wafers (15) above and beneath it are detected by a first sensor (16) and a second sensor (17). A calculating unit calculates an amount of bend of each wafer (15) based on the detected information. It is determine, based on the calculation result, whether the transfer arm (18) can be inserted under the wafer (15) to be transferred without contacting with the wafer beneath (15) and whether the wafer (15) to be transferred can be lifted up by the transfer arm (18) without contacting with the wafer above (15).
Claims15
A wafer transfer apparatus for taking out a wafer from a wafer cassette having grooves on both ends for holding circumferential edge portions of a plurality of wafers by moving a wafer taking out arm in height directions and back and forth directions relative to the wafer cassette, the wafer transfer apparatus comprising:
- bend detecting means for detecting bend of a wafer;
- and
- transfer means for inserting the wafer taking out arm into the wafer cassette, based on the bend, placing the wafer on the arm, and taking out the wafer from the cassette.
A wafer transfer apparatus including a base on which a wafer cassette storing a plurality of wafers is mounted, and a transfer arm, the transfer arm and the wafer cassette being movable relative to each other, the wafer transfer apparatus comprising:
- position detecting means for detecting position of each of the wafers in vertical direction in the wafer cassette;
- a calculating unit for calculating an amount of bend of each of the wafers based on positional information obtained by the position detecting means;
- and
- a determining unit for determining, based on a calculation result of the calculating unit, whether the transfer arm can be inserted under a wafer to be transferred without contacting with another wafer and whether the wafer to be transferred can be lifted by the transfer arm without contacting with another wafer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.