Thermco Systems, Inc.

Houdaille Industries, Inc.

William R Mello

Jon C Goldman

Hazen L Hoyt, Iii

John D Sanders

Plastic cassettes carrying semiconductor wafers are loaded into and/or unloaded from an extended open drawer. The drawer is retractable to a closed position in a frame where the cassettes may be removed from or returned to the drawer by a programmable elevator. The frame may have several drawers and cassettes may be safely loaded into or unloaded from the open drawer while cassettes are being removed from or returned to a closed drawer.

Semiconductor wafer carrier input/output drawer

A wafer boat transfer tool has an upper fork and a lower fork which may be differently configured for supporting wafer boats in different ways. The same tool may be used to transfer boats in one or more steps from locations where they are supported in one way to other locations where they are supported in the same or a different way. Also, the tool may be used to transfer more than one boat at a time without excessive travel in a direction parallel to the boat loader axis. A versatile wafer designed for use with two different forks of the tool may be utilized with different boat loaders and a common wafer transfer machine and in-process storage nests.

Wafer boat transfer tool

Semiconductor wafers in plastic cassettes are loaded into (and later unloaded from) an input/output station serving a CVD furnace and thereafter the cassettes are non-manually transported by a programmable elevator to and from a flat-finder, a wafer transfer machine (where the wafers are transferred to a boat) and in-process storage. The boats are non-manually transported by a second programmable elevator to and from the wafer transfer machine, in-process boat storage and a boat loader (or process chamber directly). The cassettes can be loaded or unloaded while one or both of the elevators are operating. Up to eight human assisted steps are reduced to only two such steps. Furnaces having more than one processing chamber have a loading station, in-process cassettes and boat storage and boats dedicated to each processing chamber so that there is no cross contamination between processing chambers caused by the boats and the cassettes in which wafers are delivered to the process are the same cassettes in which process wafers are returned to the input/output station so that there is no cross contamination of the wafers caused by the cassettes.

Semiconductor wafer carrier transport apparatus

Apparatus for detecting the presence of a tool in a spindle which can be used where automatic unattend operation occurs and it must be known that a tool is in the spindle. For example, if the tool changer on a machining center dropped a tool when transferring it from a magazine to a spindle the machine would continue to operate but machining would not occur. In the invention, air pressure is supplied to a point through a series of holes in the spindle and if a tool is present in the spindle, it will prevent air from escaping. If the tool is absent, air will escape from the spindle or when the tool is not properly seated in the taper of the spindle which will cause the air pressure to drop and to stop the spindle motor and/or provide a suitable indication and warning to the operator.

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Huntington Beach, CA, United States of America

William R Mello