Brooks Automation Gmbh

Staeubli Ag

Bernhard Strasser

Jakob Blattner

Christian Balg

Hans Schmid

In order to achieve a higher compaction ratio with a wafer transfer apparatus for transferring wafers stacked in an interspaced manner in a first holding device, e.g. a magazine, to a second holding device, which has a carrier device which is provided with two rollers which are arranged parallel to one another and can each be rotated about its longitudinal axis, the rollers can be arranged in a plurality of rotational positions, each roller is provided with a plurality of wafer receptacles extending over at least part of their circumference, some of the receptacles are arranged offset both in the longitudinal direction and in the circumferential direction of the roller and are arranged in segment portions of the circumference of the roller which extend essentially parallel to the longitudinal axis of the respective roller, the proposal according to the invention is that in at least three segment portions ( ) there are receptacles ( ) for wafers of in each case at least one wafer stack, at least a fourth segment portion ( ) is formed, in which there are receptacles for the simultaneous arrangement of wafers of at least three wafer stacks, receptacles of different segment portions of the respective roller ( ) being offset both in the longitudinal direction of the roller ( ) and in the circumferential direction of the roller, and there being, in the at least fourth segment portion ( ), receptacles which are essentially in alignment in the circumferential direction of the roller with receptacles ( ) of the first three segment portions.

Transfer device for semiconductor wafers

For removing and transporting several spaced, parallel wafers stored in a container, a gripping device is provided. The gripping device has a holding rake and several gripping heads which can be rotated with respect to the holding rake. In one swivel position, the gripping heads are moved through between the wafers and then swivelled into another swivel position. In this latter position, the gripping heads are brought to a stop against the edges of the wafers movement of the gripping device, and then the opposite edges of the wafer disks are brought to stop against the counterholder by displacement of the counterholder. All wafers contained in the container are thus simultaneously securely held and can be displaced out of the container. In order to then swivel the wafers, the holding rake which has slots for receiving the wafer edges is also stopped at the wafer edges, and the counterholder is then pushed back. The wafers are therefore securely swivelled. In the swivelled position, the vertically standing wafers are supplied to a processing carrier.

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Tägerwilen, Switzerland

Bernhard Strasser