Abstract: A wafer boats supporting wafers is loaded into and unloaded from a reaction tube with a lid therebelow in a vertical heat treatment apparatus, while holding the wafer boat vertical with respect to the lid. An arm is provided in a space below the reaction tube, for transferring wafer boats along a path, while holding the wafer boats vertical and in a substantially horizontal plane. Three stations are formed in the path. At the first station, unprocessed wafers are mounted on a first wafer boat located, while wafers mounted on a first wafer boat is being heat-treated in said reaction tube. Then, the first wafer boat is transferred from the first station to the third station, and is held at the third station. While the first wafer boat is held at the third station, the second wafer boat is lowered to the second station to unload the second wafer boat from the reaction tube, and then is transferred to the first station.

Abstract: A wafer transferring method for transferring wafers between a cassette and a boat having grooves to hold the wafers, comprises the steps of providing an identification mechanism for positional alignment on the boat in advance, detecting the identification mechanism, and aligning the boat to a predetermined position based on a detection result and transferring the wafers from the cassette to the boat. A wafer transferring apparatus comprises a loading device for extracting wafers from a cassette and transferring the wafers onto a boat, a detection device for detecting an identification section provided on the boat in order to identify a wafer transferring position on the boat, and a control device for acquiring the wafer transferring position on the boat based on a detection result attained from the detection device and controlling a mutual position between the boat and the cassette to come to a predetermined position.

Abstract: A pitch changing device of the present invention includes a lift mechanism for unloading a plurality of wafers arranged in a cassette at predetermined pitches from the cassette while the pitches are kept unchanged, and a chuck mechanism for holding the unloaded wafers while the pitches are kept unchanged. The chuck mechanism includes moving pieces mounted to be movable in an arrangement direction of the wafers, for respectively supporting the wafers, elastic members mounted in the movable pieces to be expandible/contractible in the arrangement direction of the wafers, and a driving mechanism for expanding/contracting the elastic members. When the elastic members expand/contract by the driving mechanism, the pitches of the wafers are changed while the wafers are held. The lift mechanism includes a handler for variably moving wafer stands in the arrangement direction of the wafers, and changes the pitches while the wafers are lifted.

Abstract: A wafer transfer method according to the present invention comprises taking out a plurality of wafers from a cassette while holding the wafers by a chuck mechanism, transporting the held wafers to a region over a boat, transferring all the wafers from the chuck mechanism to the boat so that the wafers are arranged in a predetermined position on the boat, relatively moving the chuck mechanism with respect to the boat for a distance equal to an integral multiple of a distance corresponding to the spacing of each wafer, and holding a required number of wafers, out of the plurality of wafers on the boat, by use of the chuck mechanism to dislocate the wafers on the boat or return the wafers to the cassette, and thereafter transferring a plurality of wafers from another cassette to the boat. According to the present invention, monitor wafers are arranged with predetermined distances between wafers on the boat, and product wafers are transferred from the second cassette to the spaces between the monitor wafers.