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:
Dec. 02, 2003
Filed:
Sep. 21, 2001
Akihiro Osaka, Tokyo, JP;
Masaki Murobayashi, Tokyo, JP;
Tatsuhisa Matsunaga, Tokyo, JP;
Kouichi Noto, Tokyo, JP;
Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
Substrate positioning and substrate transporting are processed in parallel, thereby reducing substrate transfer apparatus wait time and improving substrate processing throughput. A substrate transfer apparatus is configured in a single unit, a plural number of wafers W prior to notch alignment is transported at one time from a substrate accommodating container to a substrate alignment apparatus and the plural number of notch aligned wafers is transported from the substrate alignment apparatus to a boat . Two stages (upper and lower) of notch alignment units and that configure the substrate alignment apparatus operate independently, and are capable of performing notch alignment, in total, on a number of wafers to be processed that is twice the number of wafers transported at one time by the substrate transfer apparatus While notch alignment is being performed in the one notch alignment unit notch aligned wafers W are transported by the substrate transfer apparatus from the other notch alignment unit to the boat , and then wafers prior to notch alignment are transported from the substrate accommodating container to the other notch alignment unit