Provided is a substrate transferring method which is capable of accurately mounting a substrate at a desired rotation angle. In order to eliminate a misalignment of a wafer W in a rotational direction in a vacuum process chamber, which is caused by a variation in a transfer distance of the wafer W, the wafer W is mounted on a stage while being offset from the center of the stage in a load lock chamber and an angle of rotation of the wafer W with respect to a fork when a transfer arm receives the wafer W is changed.

An apparatus includes first load ports 2A and 2B and second load ports 2C and 2D provided in a left-right direction; a processing unit D2; an inspection module 4 provided between the first load ports 2A and 2B and the second load ports 2C and 2D; a first substrate transfer mechanism 5A provided at one side of the inspection module 4 in the left-right direction, and configured to transfer a substrate W into the processing unit D2 and a transfer container C on the first load ports 2A and 2B; a second substrate transfer mechanism 5B provided at the other side thereof, and configured to transfer the substrate W into the inspection module 4 and a transfer container C on the second load ports 2C and 2D; and a transit unit 51 for transferring the substrate W between the first and the second substrate transfer mechanisms 5A and 5B.

There is provided a substrate processing apparatus, including: a mounting part on which a carrier having a plurality of slots capable of accommodating a plurality of substrates is mounted; a transfer part configured to load and unload the substrates to and from the plurality of slots based on a reference accommodation position set in the mounting part; a detection part configured to detect a position of each of the plurality of substrates accommodated in the plurality of slots; and a correction part configured to correct the reference accommodation position based on port accumulation information in which detection results obtained by the detection part from a plurality of carriers which has been mounted on the mounting part in the past are accumulated.

A method and apparatus for aligning components within a processing module are described herein. The components include a substrate transfer device, a plurality of support chuck assemblies, and adjustable bushings disposed in the processing module. The substrate transfer device includes support arms with heads configured to passively correct the location of a substrate therein. The orientation of each of the support arms of the substrate transfer device is adjusted to align with each of the support chuck assemblies. The location of a process station is then adjusted to align with one of the support chuck assemblies by calibrating the adjustable bushings which correspond to each process station.

A load port includes a first pin projecting on a dock plate and provided on the dock plate so as to be pushed down, and a first detection unit provided on the base portion and configured to detect that the dock plate is located at a first position. The first detection unit includes a movable member capable of displacing in a moving direction of the dock plate, and a first sensor configured to detect the displacement of the movable member. The movable member is arranged at a position to abut against the first pin that is in a pushed down state in a process in which the dock plate moves from a second position to the first position.

A method of a handling semiconductor wafers in a space of a semiconductor wafer processing facility includes: loading a cassette containing at least one semiconductor wafer into a storage buffer of a load port; measuring, from within the storage buffer, a position of a selected at least one semiconductor wafer being retrieve from the cassette residing in the storage buffer; and determining, at least in part based on said measuring, a variation of the position of the selected semiconductor wafer from a nominal position.

A transport system includes a robot, sensors (an aligner sensor, a protrusion detecting sensor) and a controller. The robot having a hand which supports a wafer and transports the wafer to an aligner apparatus. The sensor detects the position of the wafer before the robot delivers the wafer to the aligner apparatus while supporting the wafer on the hand. The controller determines the positional deviation of the wafer based on a detection value of the sensor.

The inventive concept provides a transfer assembly. The transfer assembly includes a transfer robot configured to take out the transfer object stored at the cassette and to transfer in a first direction to the target position; and a guide unit providing a transfer passage for transferring the transfer object, and wherein the guide unit comprises: a first guide member provided with its lengthwise direction in the first direction; and a second guide member provided with its lengthwise direction in the first direction, and space apart from the first guide member in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction the first guide member and the second member defining the transfer passage therebetween, and wherein at least a portion of the first guide member is movable such that a width of the transfer passage is changeable by the movement of the at least a portion of the first guide member.

A transportation system of a cassette comprises a port and a system controller. The port accommodates a cassette carrying a glass substrate, and the port includes displacement sensors for sensing a position of a cassette. The system controller calculates a distortion amount of the cassette using sensed values of the cassette and determines if the cassette is in a normal settlement status by comparing the distortion amount with a tolerance value. Therefore, the position of the cassette can be automatically taught without clamping operation of a clamping device clamping the cassette disposed in the port, thereby preventing defects of the glass substrate by removing various defect-causing factors such as particles and static electricity that may occur during a conventional clamping operation. In particular, quality defects of OLED can be eliminated by preventing particles and static electricity that affect product quality defects in the OLED manufacturing process.

A substrate conveying robot has a robot arm including an end effector having a substrate holding unit holding a substrate, arm drive unit for driving the robot arm, an elevating drive unit for elevatingly driving the end effector, a robot control unit controlling the arm drive unit, the elevating drive unit, and the substrate holding unit, and a substrate detection unit having a substrate detection unit which detects a vertical position of the substrate and elevates coordinately with an elevating operation of the end effector. By this configuration, a vertical position of a substrate to be conveyed is detected with high accuracy so that a robot operation can be controlled based on the detection result.