The present disclosure contains subject matters related to that disclosed in Japanese Priority Patent Application No. 2012-016871 filed with the Japan Patent Office on Jan. 30, 2012, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
An embodiment disclosed herein relates to a transmission mechanism, a substrate positioning device and a robot.
2. Background of the Invention
Conventionally, there has been known a transmission mechanism which includes a motor, a belt and pulleys and the like to transmit the rotation of the motor between two parallel axes.
The transmission mechanism is used in an alignment device or the like which performs positioning of a substrate such as a wafer when the substrate is transferred by a robot in a space formed in a local clean device called, e.g., an equipment front end module (EFEM). Hereinafter, the alignment device is described as “substrate positioning device.”
Specifically, the substrate positioning device is configured such that a first pulley is fixed to an output shaft of a motor, a second pulley which is fixed to a support shaft of a table on which the substrate is mounted, and a belt is wrapped around the first and the second pulley. Accordingly, the substrate positioning device performs positioning of a substrate by moving the table depending on movement of the motor (see, e.g., Japanese Patent. Laid-open Publication No. 2004-200643). Further, a toothed belt made of rubber is generally used as the belt.
However, in the conventional transmission mechanism using the toothed belt, the rotation of the motor may not be accurately transmitted. This is because a width between teeth pitches of the toothed belt (hereinafter, referred to as a “teeth pitch width”) may vary due to an error at the time of molding.
Such a problem may arise in the same way in a robot which drives an arm by using the transmission mechanism as well as the substrate positioning device.
A transmission mechanism in accordance with an aspect of an embodiment disclosed herein includes a drive pulley, a driven pulley and a belt. The drive pulley is provided on a drive shaft and has external teeth with a predetermined pitch width. The driven pulley is provided on a driven shaft and has external teeth with the pitch width. The belt has internal teeth engaging with the external teeth of the drive pulley and the driven pulley and having the same pitch width as that of the external teeth of the drive pulley and the driven pulley. Further, the belt includes sub-belts having a periodic variation characteristic, in which the teeth pitch width varies periodically, and the sub-belts are arranged in a state where phases of the periodic variation characteristic of the teeth pitch widths are shifted from each other.
The objects and features of the present disclosure will become apparent from the following description of embodiments, given in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Hereinafter, an embodiment of a transmission mechanism, a substrate positioning device, and a robot will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof. Further, it is not intended that the embodiment be limited to the specific details described below.
Further, the following description will be given using, for example, a transfer system configured to transfer a semiconductor wafer using a robot. Herein, a “semiconductor wafer” is simply referred to as a “wafer,” an “end effector” of the robot is referred to as “hand,” and a “toothed belt” is referred to as “belt.”
First, an overall configuration of the transfer system including the substrate positioning device and the robot in accordance with the embodiment will be described with reference to
For the sake of understanding of the description, a three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system including a Z-axis whose positive and negative direction are vertically upward and downward (i.e., “vertical direction”), respectively, is illustrated in
Further, in the following description, a reference numeral may be assigned to only one component among a plurality of components, and assignment of reference numerals to the other components may be omitted. In this case, it is assumed that the other components have the same configuration as the component to which the reference numeral is assigned.
As shown in
The robot 10 includes an arm unit 12 having a hand 11 capable of holding wafers W to be transferred in two, i.e., an upper and a lower stage. The arm unit 12 is supported to be rotatable in the horizontal direction and to be vertically movable with respect to a base 13. The base 13 is mounted on a base mounting frame 23 forming a bottom wall of the housing 20. Further, the robot 10 will be described later with reference to
In the housing 20, a down flow of clean air is formed via a filter unit 24 which is a so-called equipment front end module (EFEM) and is provided at the top of the housing 20. By this down flow, the inside of the housing 20 is maintained in a high cleanliness state. Further, legs 25 are provided on the lower surface of the base mounting frame 23 to support the housing 20 while maintaining a predetermined clearance C between the housing 20 and the mounting surface 100.
The substrate supply unit 3 includes a hoop 30 accommodating a plurality of wafers W in multiple stages in the vertical direction, and a hoop opener (not shown) performing the opening and closing of a lid of the hoop 30 to allow the wafer W to be taken out into the housing 20. Further, multiple sets, each having the hoop 30 and the hoop opener may be provided at predetermined intervals on a table 31 having a predetermined height.
The substrate processing unit 4 is a processing unit performing a predetermined process such as a cleaning process, a film forming process, and a photolithography process on the wafer W in a semiconductor manufacturing process. The substrate processing unit 4 includes a processing device 40 performing the predetermined process. The processing device 40 is disposed on the other side surface 22 of the housing 20 opposite to the substrate supply unit 3 with the robot 10 therebetween.
Further, a substrate positioning device 50 is disposed in the housing 20 to perform the positioning of the wafer W. The substrate positioning device 50 will be described in detail later with reference to
Based on such a configuration, in the transfer system 1, a wafer W is taken out from the hoop 30 and loaded into the processing device 40 through the substrate positioning device 50 by the robot 10 performing the lifting and rotating operation. Then, the wafer W that has been subjected to a predetermined process in the processing device 40 is unloaded and transferred by the lifting and rotation operation of the robot 10 and then accommodated in the hoop 30.
Next, a configuration of the substrate positioning device 50 in accordance with the embodiment will be described with reference to
As shown in
The motor 51 is a driving source for rotating an axis AX1. At an output shaft (i.e., a drive shaft, hereinafter described as the axis AX1) of the motor 51, the drive pulley 52a of the transmission mechanism 52 is provided, and rotated along with the rotation of the motor 51. Further, the rotation angle of the motor 51 (i.e., the rotation angle of the drive pulley 52a) is detected by an encoder (not shown) or the like.
The driven pulley 52b is provided rotatably about a rotation shaft (not shown) (i.e., driven shaft, hereinafter described as an axis AX2) around an axis AX2.
Further, the belt 52c is wrapped around the drive pulley 52a and the driven pulley 52b. The belt 52c transmits the rotation of the drive pulley 52a to rotate the driven pulley 52b.
The shape and the like of the drive pulley 52a, the driven pulley 52b and the belt 52c will, be described in detail with reference to
Further, the mounting table 53 for mounting the wafer W thereon is connected to the driven pulley 52b. As the driven pulley 52b is driven to rotate, the mounting table 53 rotates the mounted wafer W such that position of the wafer W is aligned. The position alignment will be described later with reference to
Although not shown, an adsorption unit may be provided to adsorb the wafer W onto the mounting table 53. Accordingly, the wafer W can be held by a predetermined holding force (i.e., adsorption force) to prevent displacement due to a centrifugal force, thereby improving the accuracy of position alignment.
The sensor unit 54 is a detection unit for detecting, e.g., a cutout provided on the periphery of the wafer W (hereinafter described as a “notch”). In this embodiment, a case where the sensor unit 54 is configured using an optical sensor will be described by way of example, but it is not intended to limit the configuration of the sensor unit 54.
Here, the position alignment of the wafer W will be described with reference to
The light receiving part 54a and the light emitting part 54b are disposed to face each other with a gap therebetween through which the edge of the wafer W passes. At this gap, an optical axis R is formed by light from the light emitting part 54b. Further, the line sensor 54aa detects a notch Wn based on a change in light quantity of the optical axis R when the wafer W is rotated while blocking the optical axis R.
That is, the substrate positioning device 50 performs the position alignment of the wafer W by rotating the mounting table 53 until the line sensor 54aa detects the notch Wn. Further, the position alignment of the wafer W may be performed by detecting the edge of the wafer W based on a change in light intensity and then calculating an amount of eccentricity and the like. Alternatively, after capturing an image of the wafer W, the position alignment of the wafer W may be performed based on the captured image.
Further, the sensor unit 54 also detects the rotation angle of the wafer W (see arrow 201 in the
That is, it is important that the rotation of the drive pulley 52a is accurately transmitted to the driven pulley 52b. Thus, in the transmission mechanism 52 in accordance with the embodiment, the belt 52c is constituted by a plurality of sub-belts and phases of the periodic variation characteristic of the teeth pitch width of the sub-belts are shifted from each other, thereby equalizing the periodic variation characteristic of the teeth pitch width of the belt 52c. This will be described in detail below.
Further, as shown in
Meanwhile, the belt 52c is generally formed of an elastic material such as rubber, and the pitch width P of the internal teeth may vary due to an error at the time of molding. In this case, a case where the rotation angle of the driven pulley 52b is advanced or delayed with respect to the rotation angle of the drive pulley 52a, i.e., rotation unevenness is likely to occur.
In the transmission mechanism 52 in accordance with the embodiment, the rotation unevenness is reduced by shifting phases of periodic variation characteristic of the teeth pitch width of the sub-belts of the belt 52c from each other. This will, be described in detail with reference to
Here, as shown in
First, as shown in an upper portion of
Then, as shown in the lower portion of
Herein, facing ends of the sub-belts 52c-1 and 52c-2 may be bonded to each other, or may be arranged side by side without bonding. This will be described later with reference to
Further, an example of rotating the sub-belt 52c-2 by 180 degrees has been illustrated, but the sub-belt 52c-1 may be rotated in the same manner.
Here, in the case at displacing phases of periodic characteristics of the two sub-belts forming the belt 52c as shown in
In the case where the phase of the belt 52c is not shifted as shown in the upper portion of
Assuming that the constant cycle c corresponds to one lap of the belt 52c, this means that the belt 52c has the periodic characteristic for each lap drawn as the curve a. Further, the constant cycle c need not be particularly one lap.
On the other hand, in the case where the belt 52c is divided into two sub-belts and phases of periodic characteristics of the sub-belts are shifted from each other by 180 degrees corresponding to a half lap (see
Thus, since the curve b cancels out the curve a drawn by the sub-belt 52c-1 substantially equal to the belt 52c before division, ideally, it is possible to cancel the phase shift of the driven pulley 52b with respect to the drive pulley 52a (see a+b in the lower portion of
In other words, even while using the belt 52c having the periodic characteristic in which the pitch width P of the teeth varies, it is possible to make the driven pulley 52b follow the drive pulley 52a. Accordingly, the rotation of the drive pulley 52a can be transmitted to the driven pulley 52b with high accuracy less than the variation of the pitch width P.
Further, how much the driven pulley 52b follows the drive pulley 52a can be more clearly represented by the amplitude of the shift amount of the driven pulley 52b with respect to the drive pulley 52a.
For example, the shift amount before shifting the phases in the belt 52c represents a relatively large amplitude from the shift amount “0” as shown in
On the other hand, in the case where the phases in the belt 52c are shifted (see
Although the example, in which the belt 52c is divided into two sub-belts and one of the sub-belts is rotated by 180 degrees to shift the phase of the belt 52c, has been described, the present disclosure is not limited so this example. For example, the belt 52c may be divided into three sub-belts, the phase being shifted by 120 degrees.
Moreover, although there has been described a case where the phase is shifted by equally splitting 360 degrees corresponding to one lap of the belt 52c according to the number of divisions of the belt 52c, the present disclosure is not limited to such a case. For example, the phase may be shifted arbitrarily.
In the case of arbitrarily displacing the phase, it is preferable to use a technique of determining by appropriately tuning or simulating a phase to be shifted, for example, such that the amplitude of the shift amount shown in
The fact that the phase can be shifted arbitrarily in this way may mean that the accuracy at which the driven pulley 52b follows the drive pulley 52a can be operated arbitrarily.
Next, an example of molding of the sub-belts will be described with reference to
As shown in
For that reason, in the case of molding the sub-belts 52c-1, 52c-2 and 52c-3 from the block 52cB, it is preferable to use sliced members adjacent to each other which are assumed to have similar errors.
For example, in the case where the belt 52c consists of two sub-belts, it is preferable to combine the sub-belts 52c-1 and 52c-2 or the sub-belts 52c-2 and 52c-3 formed by slicing the block 52cB after making a mark M on the block 52cB in advance in the example shown in
Further, in the case where the belt 52c is constituted by three sub-belts, it is preferable to combine the sub-belts 52c-1, 52c-2 and 52c-3 in the order.
With this configuration, since the belt 52c is constituted by the adjacent sliced members assumed to have similar errors, it is possible to easily achieve averaging of the periodic variation characteristic of the teeth pitch width P by shifting the phase. That is, the rotation of the drive pulley 52a can be easily transmitted to the driven pulley 52b with high accuracy having an error equal to or less than the variation of the pitch width P.
Next, an example of the arrangement of the sub-belts will be described with reference to
First, as shown in
As shown in
Further, since the sub-belts 52c-1 and 52c-2 are adjacent sliced members (see
Although there has been described an example where the transmission mechanism 52 is provided in the substrate positioning device 50, the transmission mechanism 52 may be included in the robot of the transfer system 1. Hereinafter, this case will be described with reference to
As shown in
The first arm 12c is pivotally connected to a lifting unit (not shown) which is provided slidably in the vertical direction (Z-axis direction) with respect to the base 13 (see
Further, the joint unit 12d is a joint rotating around an axis a1. As shown in
The second arm 12e is pivotally connected to the first arm 12c through the joint unit 12d.
Further, the joint unit 12f is a joint rotating around an axis a2. As shown in
Further, two or more driven pulleys 52b′, each being the same as that shown in
The hand 11 is pivotally connected to the second arm 12e through the joint unit 12f.
Then, each belt 52c′ is composed of a plurality of sub-belts as in the case of the transmission mechanism 52, and the sub-belts are disposed by displacing the phase of the periodic variation characteristic. By providing the transmission mechanism 52′ as such, the robot 10 can operate the arm unit 12 and the hand 11 by transmitting the rotation of the motor 51′ with high accuracy less than the variation of the teeth pitch width P while achieving the light weight of the arm unit 12.
Thus, it is possible to improve the operation accuracy of the robot 10 in which a precise operation is required. Further, since it is possible to reduce the rotation unevenness of the belt 52c′ which becomes a factor of vibration, the operation accuracy of the robot 10 can be further improved.
As described above, each of the transmission mechanism, the substrate positioning device and the robot in accordance with the embodiment includes a drive pulley, a driven pulley, and a belt. The drive pulley is provided on the drive shaft, and has external teeth with a predetermined pitch width. The driven pulley is provided on the driven shaft, and has external teeth with the pitch width. The belt has internal teeth with the same pitch width, which engage with the external teeth of the drive pulley and the driven pulley. Further, the belt is composed of a plurality of sub-belts in which the pitch width varies at regular intervals, and the sub-belts are disposed in a state where the phase of the periodic variation characteristic of the teeth pitch width is shifted.
Therefore, according to the transmission mechanism, the substrate positioning device and the robot in accordance with the embodiment, even while using the belt having a periodic characteristic in which the pitch width of the teeth varies periodically, the rotation of a driving source can be transmitted with high accuracy less than the variation of the pitch width.
In the above-described embodiment, an example where a motor is used as the driving source has been described, but it is needless to say that a decelerator may be applicable between the motor and the drive pulley. In this case, the drive pulley is provided at an output shaft of the decelerator serving as the drive shaft.
In the above-described embodiment, a case where the substrate is mainly a wafer has been described by way of example, but it is needless to say that the PRESENT disclosure can be applied regardless of types of substrate.
Further, in the above-described embodiment, a single-arm robot has been described by way of example, but the embodiment disclosed herein can also be applied to a multi-arm robot having two or more arms.
Furthermore, in the above-described embodiment, the transmission mechanism included in the substrate transfer system has been described by way of example. However, it does not matter the type of system including the transmission mechanism. In addition, the transmission mechanism may be provided in an apparatus other than the system, and it does not matter the type of apparatus as well.
It should be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications, combinations, sub-combinations and alterations may occur depending on design requirements and other factors insofar as they are within the scope of the appended claims or the equivalents thereof.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2012-016871 | Jan 2012 | JP | national |