Tokyo Electron Limited

Murata Kikai Kabushiki Kaisha

Nabtesco Corporation

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Miraial Co., Ltd.

Shuji Akiyama

Hiroki Hosaka

Tadashi Obikane

Toshihiko Iijima

Kazuya Yano

Hiroshi Yamada

Takashi Nakao

Toshihiro Yudate

Nobuhiro Kameda

Eiichi Matsuzawa

Yuichi Abe

Masaru Suzuki

Tadahiro Obayashi

Hisatomi Hosaka

Kazunari Ishii

Isao Fukuda

Kazumi Yamagata

Yasuhito Yamamoto

Fumito Kagami

Isamu Inomata

Yuji Asakawa

Shinji Kojima

Takahiko Murayama

Tsuyoshi Aruga

Kazuhiro Ozawa

Takeo Saito

Shigeki Nakamura

Ken Miyano

Ki Sang Kang

Masaru Tomita

Takao Ishii

Wataru Mochizuki

A wafer inspection apparatus according to one embodiment is a wafer inspection apparatus including a plurality of inspection parts arranged in a height direction and a lateral direction, and includes a pair of air circulating means disposed at both ends in a longitudinal direction of an air circulating region including the plurality of inspection parts arranged in the lateral direction and configured to circulate air in the circulating region.

Wafer inspection apparatus

An inspection system, for inspecting an inspection target on a stage in a low temperature environment, includes a system main body including an inspection apparatus having inspection chambers each accommodating an inspection unit for performing electrical inspection of an inspection target on a stage and having inspection spaces arranged in multiple stages vertically, the plurality of inspection chambers being arranged horizontally, and a loader unit for transferring the inspection target with respect to the stage of the inspection unit; and a coolant supply unit configured to supply a coolant to the stage. The system main body further includes coolant line arrangement spaces, in which coolant lines extending from the coolant supply unit are arranged, provided above or below the respective inspection spaces to correspond to the respective inspection spaces, and the coolant lines are directed toward the corresponding inspection spaces in each of the coolant line arrangement spaces.

Inspection system

A prober can suppress a decrease of a throughput in inspection of semiconductor devices on a substrate. The proberincludes a stagehaving a horizontal mounting surfacethat mounts thereon a wafer W on which semiconductor devices are formed; a probe cardprovided to face the stage; three roller devices, each having a vertical rotational shaft, equally-spaced along a circumference of the mounted wafer W. Each roller deviceis configured to rotate the wafer W on a horizontal plane while being in contact with a peripheral edge of the wafer W.

Prober for inspecting semiconductor devices formed on semiconductor wafer

A proberincluding a probe cardhaving multiple probe needlesincludes a needle-tip polishing unit, and the needle-tip polishing unitincludes a WAPPto be contacted with needle tips and a supporting memberconfigured to support the WAPP. On a top surface of the WAPP, a wrapping sheetis provided, and the WAPPincludes multiple recessesformed on a bottom surfacethereof and the supporting memberincludes multiple protrusionsformed on a ceiling surfacethereof. When the WAPPis moved to a retreat position, the protrusionsare respectively inserted and fitted into the recesses, and when the WAPPis moved to a contact position, top portions of the protrusionsare respectively brought into contact with portions on the bottom surfacewhere the recessesare not formed.

Prober and needle-tip polishing device for probe card

A method for correcting inclination of a wafer chuck includes obtaining in advance a correction amount for each of the semiconductor chips which corrects the inclination of the wafer chuck in the case of applying a contact load to at least each one of the semiconductor chips and storing each of the correction amounts in a data storage unit; calculating a total correction amount for correcting the inclination of the wafer chuck by calculating the correction amount of each of the semiconductor chips bringing into contact with the probes when the semiconductor wafer comes into electrical contact with the probes and adding the calculated correction amounts; and correcting the inclination of the wafer chuck based on the total correction amount.

Wafer chuck inclination correcting method and probe apparatus

There is provided a probing apparatus capable of modifying an existing probing apparatus having a single loading port to one having dual loading ports while saving the space without increasing a foot print thereof and also capable of increasing an inspection efficiency by cooperating with an automatic transfer line for the apparatus having a single loading port. The probing apparatus includes a prober chamber in which a wafer is inspected and a loader chamber having: a first and a second loading ports positioned to be spaced apart from each other at the side of a prober chamber, each of the loading ports mounting thereon a cassette accommodating therein a plurality of waters; and a wafer transfer unit for transferring the wafers between the loading ports and the prober chamber. The loading ports are arranged along a route where the cassette is transferred by an automatic transfer device.

Probing apparatus and probing method

A technique of a heavy object turning apparatus that is compact, is enabled to reduce the distance between the center of gravity of a heavy object and a pivot positioned on an axis, and is configured so that a turning arm and a drive unit has a length in the direction of an axis passing through the pivot around which the heavy object is turned. A control unit fixes a support base onto a stand. An orthogonal axis reduction gear serves as an anterior reduction gear and has a configuration in which an output shaft is on an axis of a planetary gear type reduction gear serving as the posterior reduction gear. An input shaft is perpendicular to the axis. The orthogonal reduction gear is constituted by a hypoid reduction gear or a worm-geared reduction gear. A motor is disposed on the bottom surface of the orthogonal reduction gear.

Heavy object turning apparatus

There is provided a processing apparatus capable of modifying an existing processing apparatus having a single loading port to one having dual loading ports by providing an additional loading port without increasing a foot print thereof and also capable of realizing a complete automation of a wafer transfer by utilizing an existing automatic transfer line. The processing apparatus includes a loader chamber having: a first and a second loading ports positioned to be spaced apart from each other at the side of a prober chamber, each of the loading ports mounting thereon waters; a sub-chuck, disposed under the second loading port, for positioning the wafers; and a wafer transfer unit having a transfer arm for transferring the wafers between the sub-chuck and the prober chamber, the transfer arm being rotatable and movable vertically.

Processing apparatus

A compact turning device for a heavy object, comprising a turning arm joined to the heavy object and a drive device drivingly turning the turning arm. The drive device further comprises a motor incorporating a rotor shaft connected to the rotating input part of a planetary gear type speed reducer on a same axis (A). Also, the turning arm is installed by joining its first plane to the plane of the planetary gear type speed reducer forming the rotating output part and its second plane orthogonal to the first plane to the heavy object. The turning arm and the drive device are disposed within the width (D) of the heavy object in the axis (A) direction of the turning pivot of the turning arm. The planetary gear type speed reducer of the drive device may be disposed in two front and rear stages.

Turning device for heavy object

A probe apparatus includes a load port for mounting therein a carrier having therein a plurality of substrates; a plurality of probe apparatus main bodies, each having a probe card having probes on its bottom surface; a substrate transfer mechanism for transferring the substrates between the load port and the probe apparatus main bodies, the substrate transfer mechanism being rotatable about a vertical axis and movable up and down. The substrate transfer mechanism has at least three substrates capable of moving back and forth independently. Further, at least two wafers are received from the carrier by the substrate transfer mechanism, and then are sequentially loaded into the probe apparatus main bodies. The prove apparatus a high throughput increasing a wafer transfer efficiency.

Probe apparatus

A prove apparatus includes a first and a second loading port for mounting therein two carriers facing each other, a wafer transfer mechanism having a rotation center between the loading ports, and a first and a second inspection unit being symmetrical to each other and disposed in accordance with the arrangement of the loading ports. In this configuration, wafers are directly transferred between the carrier and a wafer chuck of the inspection unit by the wafer transfer mechanism. The wafer transfer mechanism has three arms for unloading two wafers from the carrier. The prove apparatus has a compact size and achieves a high throughput.

Each inspection units of a probe apparatus is provided with an imaging unit to take an image of a wafer

Wafer carrying-in/out apparatus

Wafer carrying-in/out machine

Growing community of inventors

Nirasaki, Japan

Shuji Akiyama