A transportation container is provided with a container body constructed of a top wall, a bottom wall, a rear wall, and two sidewalls forming a front opening for loading or unloading a reticle pod into or out of the container body; a lid for opening and closing the front opening; and a lift plate above the container body configured to connect to a carrier of an overhead hoist transfer (OHT) system.

A conveying device for conveying at least one wafer includes at least one transport body that is designed at least for supporting or holding a wafer. The conveying device is designed to move the at least one transport body at least two-dimensionally on a conveying surface.

An overhead transport vehicle travels along a travel rail and conveys a FOUP including a removable lid in a suspended state. The overhead transport vehicle includes a holder to grip the FOUP with the lid oriented in a width direction crossing the traveling direction, a pair of frames provided at the front and the back in the traveling direction relative to the holder, and a first lid drop-preventing member pivotable along a horizontal plane about a pivot shaft in the vertical direction, between an advanced position in front of the lid and a retracted position at a position retracted from the front of the lid.

An overhead transport vehicle includes: a traveler; a main body; a transferer including a holder, a mover, and a rotator, and which receives or delivers an article from or to a transfer destination; and a controller. The main body has an inner wall at a position at which the article held by the holder comes in contact therewith when the holder set at a storing position is rotated by a predetermined angle by the rotator. The controller causes the traveler to travel while the holder is at the storing position, and when the article is received or delivered, causes the rotator to rotate the holder by a predetermined angle or more about a rotation axis in a state where the holder is set at an exiting position by the mover to align the article with a prescribed orientation of the transfer destination.

The article transport device includes a transport vehicle configured to move back and forth between a receiving location and a delivery location, and a load receiving base that is provided at at least the receiving location. The transport vehicle includes a transport placing base on which an article is to be placed, and a lift device configured to raise and lower the transport placing base to a first height and to a second height that is lower than the first height. The load receiving base is a base on which an article is to be placed, and is fixed at a third height that is between the first height and the second height. When the transport vehicle performs restoration movement to move from the delivery location to the receiving location, the lift device performs a restoration operation that differs in accordance with whether or not an article is present on the load receiving base at the receiving location.

A substrate treating apparatus includes the following elements: an indexer block including indexer robots provided for respective carrier receivers and disposed in horizontally fixed positions, each of the indexer robots having arms for taking substrates out of a carrier and loading the substrates into the carrier on the carrier receiver; a bridge block disposed adjacent the indexer block; and a treating block including a plurality of stacked stories each having at least one treating unit. The bridge block includes a buffer, a pass having a plurality of tables covering a range from a bottom story to a top story of the plurality of stories, and two bridge robots each having an arm for transferring the substrates to and from the pass.

A method of operating a transport system includes detecting an anomalous condition of a wafer transfer vehicle; sending the wafer transfer vehicle along a rail to a diagnosis station adjacent to the rail; and inspecting properties of the wafer transfer vehicle, such as a speed, a weight, an audio frequency, a noise level, a temperature, and an image of the wafer transfer vehicle, by using the diagnosis station.

A cargo transporting vehicle configured to travel along a path of a work site is provided. The cargo transporting vehicle includes: a traveling unit configured to travel on the path; a plate configured to load a cargo thereon; a loading unit including at least an articulated arm structure in which a width and an extendable length are adjusted according to dimensions of the cargo, the articulated arm structure being configured to load and unload the cargo onto and from the plate; and a plate lifting unit configured to raise or lower the plate.

A wafer inspection system is provided. The wafer inspection system comprises: a transfer region in which a transfer device is arranged; an inspection region in which test heads for inspecting a substrate are arranged; and a maintenance region in which the test heads are maintained. The inspection region is located between the transfer region and the maintenance region, a plurality of inspection rooms accommodating the test heads are adjacent to each other in the inspection region, and the test heads are configured to be unloaded from the inspection region to the maintenance region.

A cassette transport device is disclosed which includes a smart cart, a base expansion frame mounted on the smart cart and a cassette-loading frame fixed to the base expansion frame. The cassette-loading frame is partitioned into several segments each accommodating a plurality of cassette trays. Each of the cassette trays defines, on its surface, a first trough and a second trough in the first trough. The first trough is configured to retain a cassette of a first size, and the second trough is configured to retain a cassette of a second size. With the first and second troughs, each of the cassette trays is able to retain a cassette of either the first or second size, making the cassette transport device possible to be used in transportation of the both types of cassettes with a high yield. Moreover, the smart cart is capable of automated transportation without human intervention or track construction while enabling savings in transportation cost, time and labor.