THIN SUBSTRATE PITCH MEASUREMENT EQUIPMENT
The present invention provides an equipment for measuring the vertical distance or pitch between a plurality of thin substrates inside a container body, including an optical component to transmit a light beam to a thin substrate in the container body and receive light beam reflected from the thin substrate, a scanning device to drive the optical component to move along vertical direction of the thin substrates for measuring the vertical distance or pitch between the plurality of thin substrates in the container body, and a rotation base to carry and rotate the container body to a plurality of angles for the plurality of thin substrates inside the container body to be measured from different angular positions.
1. Field of the Invention
The present field of the invention is related to a measurement equipment for measuring pitch between thin substrates, and more particularly, to a measurement equipment for measuring pitch between thin substrates placed in the interior of container body from a plurality of different angles or different positions with the container body being rotated.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The semiconductor wafers are transferred to different stations to apply the various processes in the required equipments. A sealed container is provided for automatic transfer to prevent the pollution from occurring during transferring process.
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Furthermore, there is also similar problem with LCD; with the size of LCD becomes larger and larger under demand, LCD glass substrates used in the manufacturing process also sags or concaves easily like what is described above. Therefore, a measurement system that is able to perform quantitative measurement on the distance among wafers, LCD glass substrates or other thin substrates (compact disk for example) and the degree of sag or concavity when functioning as support to detect displacement or excessive sag of wafers or thin substrates.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe design of wafer displacement detection system of prior art cannot fulfill the need of front opening unified pod (FOUP) and only the displacement of wafers can be detected; moreover, the distance between wafers cannot be measured quantitatively, and the excessive sag or concavity of wafers cannot be detected either. In view of these, one objective of the present invention is to provide a thin substrate pitch measurement equipment, which is able to detect displacement of thin substrates in the container body to prevent the displacement from causing damages to other thin substrates or slip-out of thin substrates when the door is opened.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a thin substrate pitch measurement equipment, which is able to measure the vertical distance between thin substrates; when the distance between thin substrates is not as expected, person in charge of equipment will be notified to prevent the machine arm from causing crack or damages to thin substrates when performing exporting of thin substrates during the following process.
Still another objective of the present invention is to provide a thin substrate pitch measurement equipment, which measures the distance between a single thin substrate and its neighboring thin substrates from different positions and different angles in order to find out in advance where there are problems of excessive sag or concavity of thin substrates and locate the thin substrates that do not meet the standard to prevent the thin substrate from cracking and thus causing damages to other thin substrates.
According to above objectives, the present invention discloses a thin substrate pitch measurement equipment, which includes an optical component, a scanning device, and a rotation base. The rotation base is for carrying container body in which are thin substrates and rotating the container body at least to a certain angle; the optical component includes at least a light-transmitter and a light-receiver, the light-transmitter being used to transmit a light beam to one of the thin substrates in the container body and the light-receiver being used to detect light beam reflected from the thin substrate. The scanning device is for driving the optical component to move along vertical direction of the thin substrates to measure the pitch between these thin substrates. Since the rotation base is able to rotate the container body at least to one certain angle, the optical component is thus able to measure the pitch between a thin substrate and its neighboring thin substrate from different positions or angles on this thin substrate.
The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will become more readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
In order to disclose the skills applied in, the objectives of, and the effects achieved by the present invention in a more complete and clearer manner, preferred embodiments are herein described below in detail with related drawings disclosed for reference.
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While the invention has been described by way of examples and in terms of the preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. To the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements as would be apparent to those skilled in the art. Therefore, the scope of the appended claims should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements.
Claims
1. A thin substrate pitch measurement equipment for measuring pitch between a plurality of thin substrates stored in a container body, including:
- an optical component, for transmitting a light beam to a thin substrate in said container body and receiving light beam reflected from said thin substrate;
- a scanning device, for driving said optical component to move along vertical direction of said plurality of thin substrates; and
- a rotation base, for carrying and rotating said container body to a plurality of angles to measure pitch between said plurality of thin substrates.
2. The measurement equipment according to claim 1, wherein said optical component includes a light-transmitter and a light-receiver.
3. The measurement equipment according to claim 2, wherein said light beam provided by said light-transmitter is selected from one of the groups consisting of laser light, visible light and infrared light.
4. The measurement equipment according to claim 1, wherein a linear motor is used in said scanning device for driving said optical component to move along vertical direction of said thin substrates.
5. The measurement equipment according to claim 1, wherein an electric sliding table is used in said scanning device for driving said optical component to move along vertical direction of said thin substrates.
6. The measurement equipment according to claim 1, wherein said scanning device drives said optical component to move along vertical direction of said thin substrates with 1˜50 mm as unit for scanning.
7. The measurement equipment according to claim 1, wherein said rotation base further includes a plurality of locating pillars and said container body further includes a plurality of grooves corresponding with said locating pillars for being joined with said plurality of locating pillars of said rotation base to fix said container body to said rotation base.
8. The measurement equipment according to claim 1, further including a horizontal movement device to horizontally drive said optical component closer to or farther from said plurality of thin substrates in said container body.
9. The measurement equipment according to claim 1, further including a vibration proof device, said vibration proof device preventing accuracy of measurement of pitch between said plurality of thin substrates performed by said measurement equipment from being affected by vibration in the environment.
10. A wafer pitch measurement equipment for measuring pitch between a plurality of wafers stored in a container body, including:
- an optical component, for transmitting a light beam to a wafer in said container body and receiving light beam reflected from said wafer;
- a scanning device, for driving said optical component to move along vertical direction of said plurality of wafers; and
- a rotation base, for carrying and rotating said container body to a plurality of angles to measure pitch between said plurality of wafers.
11. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, wherein said optical component includes a light-transmitter and a light-receiver.
12. The measurement equipment according to claim 11, wherein said light beam provided by said light-transmitter is selected from one of the groups consisting of laser light, visible light and infrared light.
13. The measurement equipment according to claim 11, wherein said light-receiver is selected from one of the groups consisting of laser light receiver, visible light receiver and infrared light receiver.
14. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, wherein a linear motor is used in said scanning device for driving said optical component to move along vertical direction of said wafers.
15. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, wherein an electric sliding table is used in said scanning device for driving said optical component to move along vertical direction of said wafers.
16. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, wherein said scanning device drives said optical component to move along vertical direction of said wafers with 1˜10 mm as unit for scanning.
17. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, wherein said scanning device drives said optical component to move along vertical direction of said wafers with 2˜5 mm as unit for scanning.
18. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, wherein said rotation base is able to rotate said container body more than 360 degrees.
19. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, wherein said rotation base further includes a plurality of locating pillars and said container body further includes a plurality of grooves corresponding with said locating pillars for being joined with said plurality of locating pillars of said rotation base to fix said container body to said rotation base.
20. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, wherein said container body carried by said rotation base includes a front opening to allow said light beam transmitted by said optical component to pass through.
21. The measurement equipment according to claim 20, wherein said rotation base rotates said container body to a plurality of angles for said light beam transmitted by said optical component to pass through said front opening of said container body at a plurality of angles.
22. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, further including a status indicator light, said status indicator light being activated when pitch between said plurality of wafers is not same as expected.
23. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, further including a buzzer, said buzzer being activated when pitch between said plurality of wafers is not same as expected.
24. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, further including a horizontal movement device to horizontally drive said optical component closer to or farther from said plurality of wafers in said container body.
25. The measurement equipment according to claim 10, further including a vibration proof device, said vibration proof device preventing accuracy of measurement of pitch between said plurality of wafers performed by said measurement equipment from being affected by vibration in the environment.
Type: Application
Filed: Sep 30, 2008
Publication Date: Mar 4, 2010
Inventor: Pao-Yi LU (Shulin City)
Application Number: 12/241,436
International Classification: G01N 21/84 (20060101);