Vacuum conveying apparatus and charged particle beam equipment with the same
AssigneeHitachi High-Technologies Corporation
InventorsHiroyuki Saito, Shouji Tomida
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A charged particle beam examination equipment for examining and measuring a semiconductor wafer, comprising a wafer exchange portion for exchanging an unexamined wafer and an examiner wafer with each other, which has a first arm longitudinally sliding for reciprocation, a first wafer gripping part provided to the distal end of the first arm, for gripping/releasing the wafer, a second arm longitudinally sliding for reciprocation, and a second wafer gripping part provided to the distal end of the second arm, for gripping/releasing the wafer. The apparatus may shorten the time required for exchange of the wafers so as to enhance the throughput during examination and measurement of the wafers.
Claims10
A charged particle beam equipment comprising:
- a sample chamber having a first internal space for irradiating a focused beam onto a wafer in a vacuum condition;
- a sample stage for shifting said wafer in said first internal space;
- a load lock chamber having a second internal space which is changed over between a vacuum condition and an atmospherically opened condition;
- a wafer exchange portion for exchanging said wafer on said sample stage with another wafer;
- and
- a gate valve allowing said wafers to be exchanged to pass through, for communicating and isolating between said first internal chamber and said second internal chamber,
- wherein said wafer exchange portion comprises:
- a first arm which is slid longitudinally so as to reciprocate between said first internal space and said second internal space;
- a first wafer gripping part provided at a distal end of said first arm, for gripping and releasing said wafer on said sample stage;
- a second arm which is slid longitudinally so as to reciprocate between said first internal space and said second internal space;
- and
- a second wafer gripping part provided at a distal end of said second arm, for gripping and releasing said wafer on said sample stage.
A vacuum transfer apparatus comprising:
- rotary and vertical drive sources;
- an arm supported so as to be rotated and vertically moved by said rotary and vertical drive sources;
- a first hand rotatably supported at one end of said arm, and rotated in association with rotation of said arm, for carrying thereon a sample;
- a second hand rotatably supported at the other end of said arm, and rotated in association with rotation of said arm, for carrying thereon a sample;
- and
- a power transmission mechanism for transmitting the rotation of said arm from a rotary drive shaft of said arm to respective rotary shafts of said first hand and said second hand,
- wherein said first hand and said second hand are supported being vertically spaced from each other.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.