Tokyo Electron Sagami Limited

Yuuji Ono

Takanobu Asano

Hirofumi Kitayama

Hiroyuki Iwai

A vertical heat-treatment apparatus is provided with a mechanism for automatically transferring semiconductor wafers from carriers to a boat for a vertical type furnace. The automatic transferring mechanism comprises a port for receiving a plurality of carriers arranged in series in an upright state, a posture change mechanism for changing the posture of wafers in the carriers from the upright state to the horizontal state, a parallel transfer mechanism for transferring the carriers on the boat to the posture change mechanism, a carrier loading/unloading mechanism for loading the carriers on a station, a wafer loading/unloading mechanism for taking out the wafers from the carriers on the station in turn and transferring the taken-out wafers to the boat in turn, and a mounting mechanism for mounting the boat in the furnace. The carrier loading/unloading mechanism and the wafer loading/unloading mechanism are mounted on a common frame and are rotated and lifted at the same time.

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Sagamihara, Japan

Yuuji Ono