Hitachi, Ltd.

Jun Suzuki

Hiroto Nagatomo

Michio Tanimoto

Hisashi Maejima

Teruo Furuya

Masakuni Akiba

Keishin Fujikawa

A manufacturing system in which the automatic control of the system and the automatic control of a process management are organically coupled, thereby to sharply reduce the number of workers to be engaged in the manufacture. In order to establish both the versatility necessary for multiple type of treatment and the high efficiency necessary for large-quantity treatments, the arrangement of respective treatment sections is made the job-shop-type, and the construction of treating devices themselves included in the treatment sections is made the flow-shop-type, to achieve the consecutive automation. In order to also automate the management of the process, a stocker in which unfinished products are put is situated in a specified place of the system such as the central part thereof, while the process is put forward in such a manner that a conveyor machine controlled by a control unit having a computer reciprocates between the stocker and the groups of treatment sections. The manufacturing system is suitable for the fabrication of semiconductor devices which have many kinds of articles where each kind of article needs to be mass-produced.

Manufacturing system

This invention discloses inspection apparatus for detecting unfavorable foreign matters existent on the surface of an object such as semiconductor wafer. The apparatus includes a collimated beam generator portion which projects a collimated beam towards the object to-be-inspected from a side thereof, and a mechanism which senses light reflected from the surface of the object, through a polarizer plate. In accordance with this invention, the signal-to-noise ratio between a detection signal generated by a pattern of the foreign matter to-be-detected and a signal generated by a normal pattern of the object surface and sensed as a noise component can be enhanced.

Method of inspecting the surface of an object and apparatus therefor

A wire bonding system connects wires between electrode pads on a semiconductor pellet fixed on a lead frame to the corresponding lead parts on the lead frame. The lead frame with the pellet fixed thereon is first set in a position beneath a projector, to obtain a magnified image of the pellet, from which the position of the pellet is measured. On the basis of the measured value, a computer calculates positions for bonding the wires. The lead frame with the pellet therein is then set on the wire bonding machine and the positions of the bonding head are controlled using the result of said calculation to carry out wire bonding. The position measuring means is separate from the bonding machine, with an on-line or off-line connection therebetween.

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Higashimurayama, Japan

Jun Suzuki