Intel Corporation

Kawasaki Robotics (usa), Inc.

Kawasaki Jukogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Ming Zeng

Sanjay Dabral

Avish Ashok Bharwani

Hajime Nakahara

Masaya Yoshida

Tetsuya Yoshida

Subramaniam M Maiyuran

Zale Theodore Schoenborn

Hirohiko Goto

Shigeki Ono

Takao Yamaguchi

Simon Jeyapalan

Shinya Kitano

Tomokazu Arita

Eric Chan

Dillip Sampath

Ramesh Senthinathan

Chung-Wai Yue

Andrew M Volk

Haruhiko Tan

Keith M Self

Takeshi Shibata

Kazuo Fujimori

Yukimasa Yamada

Thomas Miu

Ernest Khaw

Mark Tang

Antonio John Lozano

Tomozaku Arita

Yuji Tanaka

Hui Kuen Chan

Francisco J Duran, Jr

Bheem Patel

Tsung-Chuan Whang

Brandon Lee

Ryan Le

A robot according to one or more embodiments may include an arm and a hand. The hand is connected to the arm and supports to convey a wafer. The hand includes a base end portion that is an end of the side connected to an arm, and a distal end portion that is an end of the opposite side of the base end portion. With the hand, a lightened part is formed in at least a part of a first region which is a region of a distal end portion than the center part in the longitudinal direction of the hand.

Robot

A robot control unit for a substrate conveying robot raises a hand from a first lower position below a first target position at which the hand picks up a substrate to a first upper position above the first target position, and displaces at least one of a plurality of joints in one direction, in a first interval from the first lower position to a first intermediate position between the first lower position and the first target position.

Substrate conveying robot and substrate conveying method

A substrate transfer apparatus of the present invention includes: a robot including a hand configured to hold a substrate, and an arm configured to move the hand; a robot control device configured to set a moving path for the hand and control the arm such that the hand moves on the moving path toward a target position; and a camera disposed so as to be able to capture an image of the substrate held by the hand located at a predetermined confirmation position. The robot control device sets the moving path so as to pass through the confirmation position, obtains an image captured by the camera when the hand is located at the confirmation position, calculates a distance between a predetermined environment and the substrate which are taken in the image, and calculates a positional deviation amount from a reference position of the substrate on the basis of the distance.

Substrate transfer apparatus and method of measuring positional deviation of substrate

A method of teaching a robot, the robot including a first and second end effector that are mounted to a robotic arm wrist, the first and second end effector being rotatable about a same rotational axis independently of each other. The method includes: a first step of, in a state where rotational positions of the first and second end effectors about the rotational axis coincide with each other, attaching a relative motion preventing device to the first and second end effector, the relative motion preventing device preventing the first and second end effector from moving relative to each other; and a fourth step of generating a teaching point of the second end effector based on: a teaching point of the first end effector; and rotational position information about the first and second end effector that are stored in a storage unit in association with each other in a third step.

Method of teaching robot

Throughput is improved in a substrate transfer device including a substrate transport robot having a substrate holding hand, and an aligner. A method of controlling a substrate transfer device includes moving a substrate holding hand holding a substrate to a predetermined ready position defined around an aligner, moving the substrate holding hand to a predetermined placement position defined by the aligner to transfer the substrate to a turntable of the aligner, causing the aligner to align the substrate while causing the substrate holding hand to wait at a predetermined waiting position defined at a position closer to the placement position than the ready position is, moving the substrate holding hand to the placement position to transfer the substrate from the aligner to the substrate holding hand, and moving the substrate holding hand holding the substrate to the ready position.

Substrate transfer device and control method therefor

A substrate transfer robot delivers/receives a substrate to/from the carrier for the substrate, coupled to an opening of the load port on a first side of the load port, from a second side opposite to the first side via the load port through the opening, and the substrate transfer robot includes a hand holding the substrate, a robot arm coupled to the hand and displacing the hand, an imaging device attached to the hand or the robot arm, and a controller configured to control operation of the robot arm and the imaging device. Controller acquires a captured image including a peripheral edge of the opening and carrier coupled to the opening and performs image processing on captured image to detect deviation of the coupling position of the carrier from a predetermined reference coupling position, the peripheral edge and the carrier being captured from the second side by the imaging device.

Substrate transfer robot

A robot diagnosing method detects a deviation amount caused by a lost motion and includes: a first step of preparing a robot including a robot arm having at least one joint portion, a work conveyed by the robot, and a prealigner including a processing portion configured to detect a center position of the work; and after the first to fifth steps, a sixth step of detecting the deviation amount caused by the lost motion at the one joint portion based on (i) the center position of the work based on the center position of the work detected in the second step and a command value from a robot control portion in the fourth step and (ii) the center position of the work detected in the fifth step.

Robot diagnosing method

A control unit of a substrate conveying robot makes a robot arm and a substrate holding device execute a blade member advancing operation, a substrate receiving operation, and a substrate placing operation. The substrate holding device is configured to be capable of being switched between a first working state that a pair of blade members are arranged in the vertical direction and a second working state that a pair of blade members are arranged in a position out of the vertical direction and a single blade member can be advanced into a substrate placing structure.

Substrate conveying robot and substrate processing system with pair of blade members arranged in position out of vertical direction

A robot diagnosing method of detecting a deviation amount caused by a lost motion includes: a first step of preparing a robot and a line sensor, the robot including a robot arm including one or a plurality of joint portions including a first joint portion, the line sensor including a detecting portion configured to detect a position of a detected portion based on a light receiving state of a light receiver, the detected portion being inserted between a light emitter and the light receiver; and a sixth step of detecting the deviation amount caused by the lost motion at the first joint portion based on (i) the position of the detected portion based on the position of the detected portion detected in a third step and a command value from a robot control portion in a fourth step and (ii) the position of the detected portion detected in a fifth step.

A substrate conveyance robot has an end effector provided to a robot arm and including a substrate holding unit configured to hold a substrate, arm drive unit configured to drive the robot arm, a robot control unit configured to control the arm drive unit, and a holding force detection unit configured to detect a substrate holding force exerted by the substrate holding unit. The robot control unit controls the arm drive unit based on an upper limit value of at least one of acceleration and speed of the end effector which are determined in accordance with the substrate holding force detected by the holding force detection unit.

Substrate conveyance robot and operating method thereof

A substrate transfer device includes a casing and a substrate conveying robot. A size of the casing in a second direction Y is more than a size of the casing in a first direction X. The casing includes walls forming a conveying chamber and at least one opening or provided at at least one side of the conveying chamber in the first direction X. The substrate conveying robot includes a base, a robot arm, a robot hand, and a controller. When a space in the conveying chamber except for a predetermined exclusive region is defined as an effective conveying chamber, an entire link length DL of a link is less than a conveying chamber size Dx, and an entire hand length Dh of the robot hand is not less than an effective conveying chamber size Dx'.

Substrate transfer device

The present disclosure is directed to methods and systems for evaluating wafer size handling capabilities of wafer handling robots and wafer stations in a wafer processing environment. In one embodiment, a method is provided in which size parameters for each of one or more wafer stations and one or more robot hands of a wafer handling robot are set based on user input. A user command identifying a desired robot hand and a desired wafer station is received. A first size parameter of the desired robot hand is compared to a second size parameter of the desired wafer station. If the first size parameter is equal to the second size parameter, or if the second size parameter is an all-size parameter, the user command is executed. If the first size parameter is not equal to the second size parameter, an error is generated.

Method of wafer system interlock for the protection of equipment and product in semiconductor processing bridge tool

A variable-delay signal generator circuit includes a delay chain and an interpolator circuit. The delay chain produces multiple multi-phase signals, where each of the multi-phase signals represents a delayed version of an input event signal. Each of the multi-phase signals is separated from consecutive signals by a first phase increment. The interpolator circuit includes multiple interpolator blocks, where each block receives a multi-phase signal. The interpolator circuit interpolates between consecutive interpolator blocks, to produce an output signal that represents a modified-delay version of the input event signal. The output signal is delayed to one of multiple phase delays that exist between consecutive multi-phase signals, inclusive. To produce the output signal, a variable current source within each interpolator block is adjusted, based on a current source select signal. The current source select signal is produced by a bias circuit, which includes a split current source.

Variable-delay signal generators and methods of operation therefor

A bus in which a transmission line is excited by a pMOSFET having a drain connected to the transmission line and having a source at a core voltage V , and in which the transmission line is terminated by a device connected to ground.

Input-output bus interface to bridge different process technologies

In an electronic system having logic agents that communicate with each other through one or more signal lines, a method for testing high speed digital signaling on the signal lines is disclosed. The method involves sensing a first crosstalk signal induced by a first digital signal. The first digital signal is driven by a first logic agent into a signal line to communicate with a second agent. The second agent is coupled to receive the first digital signal from the signal line. A logic waveform that represents the digital signal is recorded and/or displayed, based upon the crosstalk signal. The technique may also be used for testing simultaneous bidirectional signaling on the same signal line.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Ming Zeng