Abstract: The present invention relates an elevating apparatus based on a hetero-oriented non-isometric, dual-spiral drive structure, comprising a first carrier and a second carrier, further comprising a first support and a second support that are telescoped together in a manner that they can rotate with respect to each other, the first support is provided with a first recessed portion and a first raised portion that shares the same spiral direction and spiral pitch, the second support is provided with a homo-oriented, isometric, dual-spiral second recessed portion that has a spiral direction different from that of the first recessed portion. The carrier of the present invention is provided in a simply-supported-beam, and the carrier force can be achieved without additional weight, and the operation is stable and reliable.

Abstract: A fork-type dual bale lift has both longitudinal and machinery pivots. A frame structure is mounted on a vertically swinging load support. A boom member is coupled to the frame structure through a pair of bearings and is pivotal about the longitudinal machine axis. At the ends of the boom member are bale supports that are operative to pierce and support a large bale for lifting and transport. A hydraulic cylinder is used to control the pivotal orientation of the boom about the longitudinal machine axis, and thereby allow an operator to selective raise one of the two bale supports while simultaneously lowering the other of the two bale supports. At the extremes of boom rotation, the lower of the two bale supports additionally engages with the frame structure to provide increased strength and stability during loading and unloading, and to reduce stress on the bearings during transport.

Abstract: By orienting substrates in a substantially vertical manner during the transport of substrates in automatic wafer transport systems of complex manufacturing environments for processing microstructure devices, a significant reduction of floor space consumption in the respective clean room environment may be achieved. In particular, for large diameter substrates, a significant reduction of the lateral dimensions of the corresponding transport system may be obtained, while an even further enhancement in this respect may be obtained for process strategies using standard lots of reduced size.

Abstract: A method and system for detecting focus spots. Data from a file created during stepper operation is extracted to get field coordinate position, leveling scheme, and tilt with respect to the x- and y-axes, and wafer height with respect to the focal plane for the multiple fields on the multiple wafers in a production batch. A delta value is calculated for the x- and y-axes tilt data which averages the tilt of each field with its surrounding fields. Delta values are placed in a 3-dimensional data structure linking neighboring fields and corresponding fields on subsequent wafers. Focus spots are detected by the repeated presence of data spikes over the sum of the arithmetic mean and some multiple of the standard deviation of the delta values.