| 摘要 |
PURPOSE:To unify a branching unit and a wafer cassette, to economize the occupying area of a processing line and to reduce installation cost by forming an opening to a side wall so that the progressive direction of a wafer temporarily waiting can be selected in at least two directions and intermittently lifting and lowering each groove in the wafer cassette so as to be conformed to the level of the processing line. CONSTITUTION:A wafer carried in from the direction A is rectilinearly propagated in the direction A as it is, and the progressive direction of the wafer is changed over properly in the direction orthogonal to the direction A as required. Wafers 2A, 2B flowing on a processing line reach branching units 3A, 3B, wafer cassettes 9A, 9B are lifted and lowered and the wafers are received into necessary grooves 91A, 91B when the wafers must be made to stand by temporarily in the units 3A, 3B, and the wafers are carried to the next processing line through carrier mechanisms 4A, 4B at the time required. When the wafer housed in either of the wafer cassettes 9A, 9B is shifted to either of other cassettes 9A, 9B, the wafer is transferred through a branching carrier mechanism 5, and the wafer is carried out to the next processing line from the branching carrier mechanism 5.
|
