Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Shimizu Construction Co., Ltd.

Shinko Electric Company, Ltd.

Ricoh Research Institute of General Electronics

Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Tsutomu Ishida

Hiroshi Harada

Shintaro Kobayashi

Yoshiyuki Iwasawa

Takeshi Watanabe

Takashi Matsumoto

Tsutomu Shinya

Toshio Takasu

Kiwamu Yamamoto

Shigeru Tanaka

Tsutomu Sato

Yutaka Kaneko

Wasaburo Ohta

Masao Yoshikawa

Fuyuhiko Matsumoto

Saburo Sasaki

Kunihiko Ikeda

Masatoshi Saitou

Kenji Yamamoto

Takehiko Iwaoka

Shuichi Tsushima

Shuichi Karasawa

Norio Matsui

Masaaki Nomura

A railway carrier apparatus for semiconductor wafers which are contained in a wafer cassette is disclosed. This railway carrier apparatus includes: a carrier for carrying the wafer cassette; a guide rail, disposed along a line of travel of the carrier, for supporting the carrier to guide the carrier along the line of travel; and a drive mechanism for driving the carrier along the line of travel. The carrier includes; a carrier body slidably connected to the guide rail for movement along the guide rail; and a bedplate member, mounted on the carrier body, for supporting the wafer cassette on its upper face. The upper face of the bedplate member is inclined with respect to a horizontal plane in such a manner that one of its opposite side edges is positioned at a higher level than the other side edge.

Railway carrier apparatus for semiconductor wafers

There is disclosed a robot used in a clean room and adapted to transport a wafer cassette containing semiconductor wafers. The robot includes: a guide rail disposed in the clean room; a robot body slidably connected to the guide rail for movement along the guide rail; and a first drive mechanism for driving the robot body along the guide rail. The robot body includes: a clamping hand for releasably clamping the wafer cassette; an arm assembly, extending between the guide rail and the clamping hand, for controlling the position of the clamping hand; and a wrist assembly, interposed between the arm assembly and the clamping hand, for adjusting the orientation of the clamping hand. The wrist assembly includes: a wrist frame connected via a horizontal pivot to the arm assembly for upward and downward movement, the wrist frame rotatably supporting the clamping hand for turning about an axis perpendicular to the horizontal pivot; a second drive mechanism for pivoting the wrist frame relative to the arm assembly; and a third drive mechanism for turning the clamping hand relative to the wrist frame.

Transporting robot for semiconductor wafers

A contact type image sensor includes a plurality of opaque metallic films formed on top of a transparent insulating substrate. Each opaque metallic film is located between adjacent lower electrodes formed on a transparent insulating film so as to prevent light emitted from a light source from being irradiated on a document to be scanned. Further, each opaque metallic film is located between adjacent upper extension electrodes connected to transparent conductive films formed on photoelectric conversion layers, so as to prevent the light from being irradiated on the document. Only light which is emitted from the light source and then passes through the light window, is irradiated on the document.

Contact type image sensor

There is disclosed a dusttight storage cabinet apparatus used for storing works such as wafer cassettes for containing semiconductor wafers. The storage cabinet apparatus includes: a housing having an entrance, formed in its front wall, for allowing works to come in and go out of the housing therethrough; an air supply duct for supplying the inside of the housing with clean air; a vertical rotation shaft rotatably disposed in the housing for turning about its longitudinal axis; a drive motor for turning the rotation shaft; and a rack assembly of a substantially cylindrical structure. The rack assembly is coaxially secured to the rotation shaft and has a plurality of compartments for storing the works therewithin. The compartments open radially outward and are partitioned off from one another so as to prevent cross contamination by dust among the compartments.

Dusttight storage cabinet apparatus for use in clean rooms

A transfer system for transferring a SMIF pod.TM. in a clean room, in which the pod is adapted to contain a wafer cassette. The transfer system includes: at least one pair of SMIF arms.TM., the arms disposed adjacent to a semiconductor processing apparatus for transferring wafers, carried in the wafer cassette, into and out of the semiconductor processing apparatus; a transfer tube disposed near the arms; a vehicle adapted to carry the pod and adapted to move within the transfer tube; evacuation mechanism for evacuating the transfer tube to produce a negative pressure within the transfer tube so that the vehicle is moved along an axis of the transfer tube due to the negative pressure; and at least one pair of conveying mechanisms for conveying the vehicle between the transfer tube and respective arms.

Transfer system in a clean room

A semiconductor processing system which includes: a first semiconductor wafer cassette for housing semiconductor wafers; a first transfer pod for enclosing the first cassette airtightly, the first pod having a box-like pod body with an open bottom and a bottom plate detachably attached to the pod body for closing the bottom of the pod body; a wafer processing equipment having a first port for loading the cassette and a canopy covering the first port, the processing equipment processing the wafer in the first cassette when the cassette is loaded in the first port; and a first mechanism for transferring the first cassette between the first port of the processing equipment and the first pod without exposing the cassette and the wafers therein to outside contamination. The first transferring mechanism includes: a second port, provided on the canopy of the processing equipment at the position directly above the first port, for placing the first pod on the second port, the second port including a port assembly for attaching and detaching the bottom plate of the first pod to and from the pod body when the first pod is placed on the second port; and a first lift mechanism, arranged mainly between the first and second ports, for conveying the bottom plate of the first pod between the first and second ports when the bottom plate of the pod is detached from the pod body.

Semiconductor processing system

A composite photosensitive element for use in electrophotography which comprises an electrically conductive substrate and a first photoconductive layer and second photoconductive layer laminated on said substrate in the order named, said first photoconductive layer being a Se-As vapordeposited layer or a Se-Te-As vapordeposited layer, said second photoconductive layer being a multilayer type one comprising a charge transport layer and a charge carrier generating layer consisting essentially of azo pigment in the order named from the surface and a process of forming images using same.

Composite photosensitive elements for use in electrophotography and

A copying method for producing duplicates of an original of at least two colors by using a composite photosensitive member including more than two photosensitive layers, wherein the photosensitive member is subjected to charging more than twice and exposed to an optical image of the original more than once by changing charging and exposing conditions, to vary charge carried on the surface and in the interior of the photosensitive member. This causes two types of electrostatic image to be formed on the surface of the photosensitive member; one type includes image regions having a positive surface potential, a negative surface potential and a substantially zero surface potential respectively and the other type includes two image regions having different surface potentials of same polarity respectively, and one image regions of substantially zero surface potential, depending on differences in color between image regions of the original corresponding to the image regions on the photosensitive member. By suitably selecting charging and exposing conditions, it is possible to selectively carry out, by using a single copying apparatus, a copying mode in which duplicates are produced in several colors, a copying mode in which duplicates are produced in one color and a copying mode in which image regions of one color are erased.

Copying method and apparatus

A method whereby a large number of copies can be produced from a single electrostatic latent image formed on one of a dielectric member, an insulating member or photoconductive member by developing and printing the image by transfer printing in successive operations. The absolute value of a bias voltage impressed on the developing device in developing the electrostatic latent image is gradually reduced until the number of copies produced reaches a specific level, and then progressively increased as the number of copies produced increases for producing copies in numbers which exceed the specific level, whereby copies of a number greater than the number of the specific level can be produced from the same electrostatic latent image.

Method for producing a large number of copies by means of copying

A method and apparatus for transfer printing a toner image from an image forming surface to the surface of a recording sheet by means of a transfer printing member electrically charged to have the same polarity as the electrostatic latent image on the image forming surface. The recording sheet is initially engaged with the image forming surface before engaging the transfer printing member, and then is fed to the transfer printing station while pressed against the image forming surface with a low pressure by the transfer printing member to effect a toner image transfer printing. The recording sheet is subsequently separated from the image forming surface while being electrostatically supported by the transfer printing member.

Method of and apparatus for transfer printing a toner image

An electrostatic image is formed on a rotating photoconductive drum and developed a number of times to form toner images which are transferred to respective copy sheets. The drum is rotated at a first speed for exposure and development of the first toner image and thereafter at a second higher speed for development of the subsequent toner images. A magnetic brush applies the toner substance to the drum, and is rotated at a third speed when the drum is rotated at the first speed and at a fourth speed which is higher than the third speed when the drum is rotated at the second speed, thereby applying more toner substance to the drum at the higher speed and maintaining the copy density constant. Alternatively or in combination, a bias voltage applied to the magnetic brush may be reduced at the higher drum speed, also resulting in the application of more toner substance to the drum.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Tsutomu Ishida