Substrate carrying and processing apparatus

Abstract

The present invention provides a substrate carrying and processing apparatus which is intended to reduce the size of the space for storing substrates in each substrate storing section as much as possible so as to downsize the apparatus and increase the number of substrates to be stored therein as well as to enhance the throughput. The substrate carrying and processing apparatus comprises a carrier block Swhich is adapted to position carrierseach receiving wafers W therein, a processing block Sincluding processing units Uto Uused for processing each wafer, a main arms Aadapted to transfer each wafer to each processing unit, a rack unit Uwhich is disposed between the carrier block and the processing block and able to store wafers to be processed, and a transfer arm D adapted to transfer each wafer to the rack unit. The rack unit has openingsto which the main arm and the transfer arm can transfer each substrate along two directions crossing to each other, and includes a plurality of placing shelves with a space therebetween and adapted to support a wafer. The main arms and transfer arms are configured such that they can be advanced into and retracted from the substrate storing section and such that they can be overlapped to the corresponding placing shelf in the vertical direction, when viewed in the horizontal direction.