The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 06, 2001
Filed:
Aug. 29, 1997
John Howells, West Linn, OR (US);
Andrew P. Gorman, Portland, OR (US);
Randall W. Peltola, Hillsboro, OR (US);
Daitron, Inc., Wilsonville, OR (US);
Abstract
Wafers from cassettes placed in a cassette holder at a loading station are transferred by a loader to a conveyor and through a wafer processing stage. From the conveyer, the wafers are delivered to an unloader at an unloading station. The unloader transfers the wafers to cassettes held in a cassette holder at the unloading station. The cassettes may be loaded into the rear of the loading station and removed from the rear of the unloading station. The cassette holders support plural stacks of at least two cassettes which are independently indexed upwardly and downwardly. The stacks of cassettes are also carried by a cassette positioner which is transversely shiftable to position a first stack in a wafer transfer zone while a second stack is in a cassette transfer zone spaced from the wafer transfer zone and vice versa. The loader may include an arm which is linearly translated and is rotated about its longitudinal axis to invert the wafer for delivery to a destination location. The unloader may be a water slide having a plurality of grooves for carrying water which spreads out from the grooves in the presence of a wafer to support the wafer as it slides down the water slide.