Miraial Co., Ltd.

Shin-etsu Polymer Co., Ltd.

Tsuyoshi Nagashima

Takaharu Oyama

Chiaki Matsutori

Hiroki Yamagishi

Shuichi Inoue

Hiroyuki Shida

Kazumasa Ohnuki

Nobuyuki Kasama

Kazumasa Onuki

Ryuuji Fukuda

The present invention comprises: a container body; a lid; a lid-side substrate support capable of supporting edges of substrates when a container body opening is closed by the lid; a rear-side substrate support that is disposed as a counterpart of the lid-side substrate support in a substrate housing space, is capable of supporting the edges of the substrates, and supports the substrates in a state in which the edges of the substrates are arranged parallel to each other by the rear-side substrate support together with the lid-side substrate support while the container body opening is closed; a pair of lateral substrate supports that are disposed to face each other in a lateral direction in the substrate housing space and are configured to contact the edges of the substrates to be able to support the edges of the substrates in a state in which the adjacent substrates are arranged parallel to each other at predetermined intervals; and support constituent parts that are disposed to face the inner surfaces of side walls of a wall of the container body. The lateral substrate supports are provided in the support constituent parts, and a dehumidifying agent is placeable between the support constituent parts and the inner surfaces of the side walls of the wall of the container body.

Substrate storing container

Disclosed is a gas purge filter used in a housing container provided with a container main body and a lid body. The gas purge filter has a filter housing having a ventilation space where gas outside the housing container and gas of a housing space can be ventilated, and a pad formed outside the housing space of the filter housing to cover an outer peripheral face of a nozzle portion that forms a part of the ventilation space. The pad is formed of an elastic body.

Gas purge filter

An upper cushioning material is placed on a substrate storing container in a packing box. The substrate storing container is placed on a lower cushioning material. The lower cushioning material is disposed in the packing box in such a manner that the substrate storing container is sandwiched in the vertical direction by an upper cushioning material and the lower cushioning material. Furthermore, the lower cushioning material is not in contact with any of a first side plate, a second side plate, a front plate and a back plate of the packing box, and a lower space is formed between the lower cushioning material and the first side plate, the second side plate, the front plate and the back plate of the packing box.

Packing structure for packing substrate storing container

The lower lid includes a bottom plate that supports the substrate storing container and a lower lid peripheral wall that extends upwards from a periphery of the bottom plate. The sleeve member has a tubular shape having an axial center that extends in the vertical direction. The upper lid has a top plate and an upper lid peripheral wall that extends downwards. The lower lid includes device positioning portions. The device positioning portions can engage the positioned portion of the lifting device that lifts, from the lower lid, the substrate storing container which is supported by the lower lid in a state of the upper lid being removed therefrom.

Structure for fastening together resin members in substrate storing container

A substrate storing container that stores substrates composed of semiconductor wafers includes: a locked portion that is arranged at a center portion of an upper wall and is locked by a lifting member that can lift a container main body; in which the locked portion includes a plate-like flange portion having a lower face that faces the upper wall and an elastically deformable elastic member provided at a lower face of the flange portion and/or at a rim portion of the flange portion; and in which the locked portion is locked by the lifting member in a state in which the elastic member is sandwiched between the flange portion and the lifting member.

Substrate storage container

The first cushioning portion includes: a cushioning support portion that directly abuts the substrate storing container to support the substrate storing container; and a cushioning-portion connecting portion that is connected to the cushioning support portion, and extends downwards from the cushioning support portion. The second cushioning portion includes: a cushioning plate-like portion in which a through-hole is formed; and cushioning leg portions which are configured by a cushioning material which is softer than the cushioning-portion connecting portion of the first cushioning portion, and extend downwards from the cushioning plate-like portion. The cushioning plate-like portion supports the first cushioning portion in a state in which the cushioning-portion connecting portion penetrates through the through-hole of the cushioning plate-like portion.

Packaging structure for packing substrate storing container

The lid body side wafer support parts allow flexibility to be exhibited and supports the wafers. If a closed state substrate is defined as being a wafer which is stored in the substrate storing space in a container main body in a state wherein the container main body opening portion is closed by the lid body, and a closed time center is defined as being the center of a closed state substrate, the back side substrate support portion, when a closed state substrate is viewed in the thickness direction, are disposed in a pair about a depth direction reference line and support the wafer. A center angle which the back side substrate support portion form toward the depth direction with respect to a left/right direction reference line when a closed state substrate is viewed in the thickness direction is 20-55&#xb0;.

The substrate storage container includes: a container body for storing a semiconductor wafer; a lid body for opening and closing a front of the container body; and a locking mechanism for locking the lid body that has closed the front of the container body. The lid body is formed of a lid main body to be fitted to the front of the container body and a cover plate for covering a front face of the lid main body. The locking mechanism includes a rotating operation portion that is pivotally supported by the lid main body and rotationally operated from an outside of the cover plate. A plurality of posture control members for the rotating operation portions are provided for, at least, the cover plate, among the cover plate and the rotating operation portion.

A substrate storing container is provided with a lid-body-side substrate support section that can support the edges of a plurality of substrates when a container main body opening is occluded by the lid body. The lid-body-side substrate support section is provided with: a lid-body-side substrate receiving section and a pair of lid-body-side leg sections respectively connected to one end and the other end of the lid-body-side substrate receiving section. One lid-body-side leg section of the pair of lid-body-side leg sections is fixed at the outside of a concavity for fixing a lid-body leg section, and the other lid-body-side leg section of the pair of lid-body-side leg sections is fixed within the concavity for fixing a lid-body leg section.

A substrate storing container includes: a container body for storing semiconductor wafers; a door that is fitted to the front of the container body; and a locking mechanism locking the door. The locking mechanism includes: a rotary driver that is supported by the door and operated from a cover plate side; and a locking bar that vertically slides as the rotary driver rotates to bring the distal end into, and out of, a locking hollow of the container body. The rotary driver is separated into first and second rotary drivers. The first and second rotary drivers are formed with first and second cam portions, respectively. The first and second cam portions are made to support the proximal end of the locking bar therebetween so that the locking bar can sway in the thickness direction of the door.

Wafer support shelves () are each provided with wafer support projections (A, B, B) on which parts of the outer margins of a semiconductor wafer (W) are to be placed. In each case, one of the support projections (A, B, B) is provided on the far side of the center position of the semiconductor wafer (W), and two of the support projections are provided on the near side of the center of the semiconductor wafer. By means of this structure, in a state in which a lid body () is not attached to a wafer extraction/insertion opening (), the flexure amount of the semiconductor wafers placed on the support projections of multiple locations in the wafer support shelves can be reduced with a minimal number of projections, so that a hindrance is not created to an operation such as extraction by a robot arm.

Wafer storing container

The position of a substrate temporal placement piece () is set so that the substrate temporal placement piece () does not overlap a disc-shaped substrate (W) from a viewing direction perpendicular to the surface of the disc-shaped substrate (W), when a lid () is attached to a substrate transfer opening () of a container main body () and the disc-shaped substrate (W) is pressed to a location where the substrate is positioned and held by a back side holding portion (). Thereby, even if the disc-shaped substrate (W) stored in the container main body () is bent due to vibration, impact, etc., there is no danger that the substrate (W) is in contact with the substrate temporal placement piece (), and the disc-shaped substrate (W) having a larger diameter can be safely stored.

A main body may have a cavity for storing a plurality of parallel semiconductor wafers and an opening for transferring one or more semiconductor wafer into or from the cavity. A covering body may be mounted detachably to the opening in order to close the opening. A gasket may seal between an edge portion of the covering body and an edge portion of the opening. The gasket may be configured such that, when the opening is closed by the covering body, a size of a deformation margin of the gasket is formed to be smaller in a region that seals a vertical edge portion of the opening orthogonal to the face of each semiconductor wafer than in a region that seals a horizontal edge portion of the opening parallel to the face of each the semiconductor wafer.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Tsuyoshi Nagashima