Shinko Electric Company, Ltd.

Atsushi Okuno

Masanori Tsuda

Masanao Murata

Hitoshi Kawano

Tsuyoshi Tanaka

Teruya Morita

Teppei Yamashita

Mitsuhiro Hayashi

Yasuhiro Nakai

Akio Nakamura

Hiromi Morita

Tanaka Tsuyoshi

An induction heating furnace includes a furnace body having a side wall extending so obliquely as to increase in radius from the bottom to the top edge portion and formed by a plurality of longitudinally split, conductive segments arrayed circumferentially and insulated from each other, a first induction heating coil arranged at an outer periphery of the side wall for subjecting a to-be-heated material accommodated in the furnace body to induction heating and a melt-use power source for supplying AC power to the first induction heating coil.

Induction heating furnace and bottom tapping mechanism thereof

A transport system has a track provided along a transport route forming a main route and at least one branch route connected to the main route at a branch point. A first power supply line is provided along the main route; a second power supply line is provided along the branch route and a transport vehicle moves along the track. There is a drive unit for driving the transport vehicle along the track with the drive unit being attached to the transport vehicle, a route selector for selecting a branch route at the branch point and a power receiver for receiving electric power from the first and second power supply lines to supply electric power to the drive unit.

Transport system

Disclosed is an electronic substrate processing system comprising a processing equipment for processing electronic substrates including semiconductor wafers and liquid crystal substrates; a cleaning equipment for cleaning said electronic substrate in a predetermined processing step; a portable closed container for accommodating a cassette containing said electronic substrate; a purging station for gas-purging said portable closed containers; and a storage member for storing said portable closed containers, wherein said cassette accommodates said electronic substrates which have been cleaned by said cleaning equipment being set in said portable closed container and purged with an inert gas in said purging station, and said portable closed container or containers is stored in said storing section when necessary.

Electronic substrate processing system using portable closed containers

A gas purge unit for a portable closed container is defined by a purge box including an opening, and a container stand around the opening on which a closed container is set; a gas supplying inlet coupled to a gas supplying source, and a gas discharging outlet; and a lifting mechanism for closing the opening from inside of the purge box and controlling the locking and unlocking operations of a locking mechanism provided in the lid of the container.

Gas purge unit for a portable container

An ID recognizing system for a semiconductor manufacturing system includes IC modules set in surfaces of containers which accommodate wafers and are conveyed from one device to another in the semiconductor manufacturing system. Each IC module is capable of transmitting and receiving signals from fixed stations and includes a reloadable memory. The semiconductor manufacturing system is made up of a number of devices for performing manufacturing operations on the wafers in the containers, and each of the devices include one of the fixed stations. The IC module is powered by the energy of radio waves received from the fixed station in the device in which said container has been placed for processing of the wafers therein. The radio communication is in the form of communication packets which include data on individual wafers in the cassettes so that the individual wafers can be processed separately. The position or off-set of the data within the packet indicates the position of the corresponding wafer within the container.

ID recognizing system in semiconductor manufacturing system

An article storage house in a clean room for airtightly accommodating a wafer cassette, etc. in which the wafer cassette carried in from the outside of an article carry-in/out portion is accommodated into a container by an automatic article delivery unit disposed in the article carry-in/out portion or it is carried in the article storage house while it is accommodated in the container and is stored in sections of the article storage house. An inert gas purge mechanism and an automatic container cleaning portion are disposed in the automatic article delivery unit or each section.

Article storage house in a clean room

A wafer storing, closed container for use in a clean room of a semiconductor manufacturing system is provided with an attached inert gas tank so as to eliminate the need to convey the container to an inert gas purge station to supplement the inert gas supply in the container due to leakage. A gas passageway is formed in a body of the container in such a manner that one end thereof is open inside the container. The other end is open outside the container. The portable inert gas tank is detachably connected to the other end of the gas passageway so as to automatically supplement the container with the inert gas.

Closed container to be used in a clean room

A wafer keeping apparatus includes a closed wafer keeping space, and an arrangement for circulating an inert gas through a filter and then through the wafer keeping space. In one embodiment, several wafer keeping shelves are each provided within the space, and the inert gas is supplied through a respective filter to flow across each shelf. In another embodiment, a plurality of wafer keeping spaces are each accessible through a respective door which forms an airtight seal when it is closed, and respective filters are provided on opposite sides of the space, the inert gas being supplied to the space through one filter and exiting the space through the other filter. In a further embodiment, several of the wafer keeping spaces are provided at angularly and vertically spaced locations in a rotatable stocker body provided within a casing, and several vertically spaced doors are provided on the casing to provide access to respective wafer keeping spaces in the stocker body.

Growing community of inventors

Ise, Japan

Atsushi Okuno