Wafer Handling Robots and Their Productivity

If we see in today's times, the overall productivity of the semiconductor is turning out to be largely dependent on the robotic handling industry. For replacing the processed wafer with the unprocessed one is like bringing a barrier in enhancing the speed of the processing machines without even counting how much time the process will take. Accordingly, to go by the rise in the speed needs as well as accuracy, the semiconductor front end must be driven at a faster pace within the increase of the cost and size of the objects. The way in which the manufacturer see wafer handling equipment, like taking in view the efforts are considered to be the mechanical systems design with the strengthening of manipulated abilities.

The wafer handling systems have the ability to tell about the requirements for the semiconductors quartz and wafer handling. The semiconductor robot handling and wafer handling depicts the vital feature of beam wafer sensing with the wafer handling robots. Semiconductor equipment utilizes the wafer handling robots in the semiconductor equipment spectrum for various means such as metrology systems, thermal processing systems, deposition systems, and so many more. 

There are many scams in the daily operations of semiconductors, and semiconductor robot handling is a great way to make the process smooth and transparent. With the rise of the semiconductor operations and its related businesses, the manufacturing systems are trying their best to get dynamic technical and business needs. The semiconductor manufacturing undergoes suffering from automation. Wafer handling robots and semiconductor front end need good conformity to facts and robustness for the mechanical coercion.

There are some strategies that can intensify the performance of the wafer handling robots. Let's dig into that:

The common known trait of the manipulating task performed by the robotic handling systems and semiconductor front end is that they have to offer a straight-line motion of the center of the wafer. The straight-line motion is collateral with the central axis of the equipment, i.e., a process chamber, an open cassette, or a FOUP. Even though that straight-line motion extends in the horizontal plane, but in actual sense, the linear motion may extend its hand for the synchronized vertical move to look out for equipment placement robotic arm slope. So, depicting the straight-line motion as uneasy does not mean that the manipulated object gets continuously along with the equipment. It also shows that the path to the center of the wafer is stiffed to remain within reach of the equipment's centerline. Mostly, it is considered to be less than 0.5 mm with the path and less than 0.05 mm at the extremity point. That's the reason that the motion is known to be the fine motion. When we see on the basis of the straight line segment, it is located within the center of the robot. Also, there are numerous other strategies for performing the manipulative task, along with the mechanical structures of the robotic handling systems.

Apart from the stiffed straight-line motion, there is another motion, which is widely used, and that is gross motion. It is aimed to transfer the wafers between the various strategy positions, which are the front stances of equipment. It is surrounded by the walls of the environment as it retains the huge tolerance between the robotic system as well as the wall constraints. We can conclude that this motion doesn't require a lot of accuracies. Consequently, for boosting the performance of the robotics handling system, the gross motion must be really fast and must be set with the constraints by the need to hold wafer on the end-effector. Therefore, mixing the uneasy straight-line motion and a limited accuracy makes the gross motion to be known as one of the significant issues in the design and hold over the high performance of the robotic handling systems. We see in the majority of cases, the effective combination of the gross and fine motions, award more to the lessening of the wafer exchange time instead of the boost of the velocity and acceleration of the split motions. 

The branching scenario is the most used scenario of the robotic arm architecture in semiconductor automation. The reason that modules are disposed of is that their longitude passes through a single point that accords with the center of rotation of wafer handling robots. That is the reason for preferring the radial scenario. It is used by having the constraints of the motion control technologies at the time rather than coming with the obligations for the favorable and economic position of the equipment set by the automation. With the capture of the control of manipulators within the industry, which created it to move the robotic arms in the endless paths, because of that, the radial scenario started to hinder the FAB robotic automation and different "in-line" scenario for the equipment management was proposed and provided the recognition as standard. In order to see the same scenario, the equipment is put in a way that is orthogonal and designates major requirements to the motion abilities of the Robotic Handling System, such as the capability to shift the straight lines forthwith. So, this needs to be aligned with the gross motions, and these motions are specifically defined in the cylindrical space. The regular radial robots called TRZ robots have turned out to be not so great in serving the "in-line" equipment with some exceptions in a skew manner. In the end, it needs the end-effector that would try to enter the equipment at an angle, but the wafer held by the end effector shifts to a straight line coincident with the y-axis of the equipment. Stage repair also becomes crucial.