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. 19, 2013
Filed:
Sep. 11, 2007
Yasushi Hayashida, Koshi, JP;
Yoshitaka Hara, Koshi, JP;
Tomohiro Kaneko, Koshi, JP;
Tokyo Electron Limited, Minato-Ku, JP;
Abstract
A coating and developing system and control method is provided. The system and control method curtails the amount of time for which a substrate is held with no purpose while improving the throughput of the coating and developing system. An inspection station through which a substrate processed in a processing station is transferred to a carrier station includes a plurality of different inspection modules respectively taking different inspection times, a buffer unit for temporarily holding a substrate and a substrate carrying means controlled by a controller. When the inspection module is engaged in inspecting a substrate, the substrate carrying means carries another substrate to be inspected by the same inspection module to the buffer unit and the substrate is held in the buffer unit. Thus, the holding of wafers in the inspection modules can be suppressed and the throughput can be improved.