Hirata Corporation

Noriyoshi Toyoda

Hirofumi Nakamura

Minoru Soraoka

Shinji Yokoyama

Hidenobu Tanimura

The present invention provides a container opening/closing device for opening and closing a lid of a container. The container comprises a container body including an opening and the lid detachably attached to the opening. The device comprises an opening/closing mechanism including a holding portion for holding the lid and a pressing mechanism. The opening/closing mechanism opens and closes the opening by moving the holding portion between a closing position and an open position. The pressing mechanism presses a peripheral edge of the holding portion toward the container body when the opening/closing mechanism moves the lid from the open position to the closing position.

Container opening/closing device

A load port is provided with a table and a plate. The table is arranged on a side of a front wall of an atmospheric transfer unit for transferring a piece of material under processing and is adapted to mount on it a container with the piece of material received in the same. The plate serves to isolate an interior of the atmospheric transfer unit from an exterior of the atmospheric transfer unit. The load port includes an exhaust duct arranged on a rear side of the plate and a fan arranged in a lower extremity of the exhaust duct. By the exhaust duct and the fan, an internal atmosphere of the atmospheric transfer unit can be exhausted into the atmosphere.

Load port

To ensure that an abnormality in a closed state of a FOUP door serving as a lid of a FOUP can be detected quickly and reliably, a FOUP opener includes a port door attached detachably to an opening window in a port plate for separating the interior and exterior of a semiconductor processing device, and a dock unit for positioning the FOUP in a FOUP door attachment/detachment position. A suction disc mechanism and a lock mechanism for fixing the FOUP door to a FOUP main body and releasing the FOUP door are disposed on the port door. A FOUP door detection sensor for determining whether or not the FOUP door fixed to the FOUP main body, which is positioned in the FOUP door attachment/detachment position on the dock unit, is attached correctly to an opening portion of the FOUP main body is disposed on the port plate.

Growing community of inventors

Shinagawa-ku, Japan

Noriyoshi Toyoda