AWP 300 - Wafer Packer

With wafers becoming thinner and larger, they are more fragile, valuable and harder to handle. For manufacturers, safety in shipping has never been more critical.

Transporting wafers in bulky FOUP or FOSB cassettes is risky, inefficient, and costly due to breakage rates and transportation costs that
continue to increase as the new wafers move to offshore assembly sites. As a result, the global demand for a more secure, more efficient shipping method has increased substantially.

Today, most fabs ship their thinner and larger wafers in streamlined canisters (a.k.a. flat packs). Because of tighter package tolerances, protective interleaf sheets between wafers, foam padding top and bottom, thin wafers are shipped with greater economy, greater protection, and virtually no chipping
or breakage.

To serve this safety and cost conscious market, Ricmar offers the state-of-the-art AWP 300 Wafer Packing and Unpacking Tool. The AWP 300 comes with a wide array of dynamic and basic features including, important functions such as precision high speed sorting, OCR/BCR reading, and SECS/GEM capabilities.

The AWP 300 is based on 300mm EFEM handling technology, rigorously proven in the field and designed around the cutting edge technology of
the ROB 320 Series Robot.Two multi-tasking robots access the numerous Input and Output stations. Both robots are mounted on a single-track system,
enabling them to move smoothly between the various stations. One robot serves the interleaf supply, the foam bin, and the canister, while the other robot accesses the FOUP or FOSB‘s, prealigner, and designated canister. With multible BOLTS compadible I/O stations the AWP 300 accomodates multitude of configurattions easily adapting to your changing packing and sorting needs.

The robot transporting the interleaf sheets and foam pads uses a specially designed spider chuck utilizing Ricmar proprietary technology. This enables the robot to swiftly and safely pick up the various materials with the greatest care and reliability.

The SPA prealigner in the AWP 300 delivers exact X/Y alignment on the wafer identification. A Class 1 laser scanner resides on one robot‘s upper link arm, providing a fast and highly accurate map of the wafers in the cassettes.

The AWP 300 software, developed from the second generation Sorter Manager Software, aggressively controls and tracks all material handing. It allows for wafer transfers in manual, automatic, and host modes, using the optional GEM/SECS software. All modes of operation are fully programmable by the user.

The AWP 300 has several working modes. It can be used to pack and/or unpack wafers from FOUP’s or FOSB‘s into canisters (flat packs). The AWP 300 has full wafer sorting capabilities. The working modes include merging, splitting, direct transfers, and randomizing of the wafers.

This system has been designed to run 300 mm wafers. However, a 200 mm bridge tool version is optional (AWP 2300). The AWP 300 uses a PC running a Windows™ operating system to ensure top speed and reliability. Furthermore, the tool is fully SECS/GEM/HSMS compliant.

The Sorter Manager software‘s ease-of-use and set up allow the user to take advantage of the AWP 300‘s many convenient options. Recipes run at the touch of ten easy-to access programmable hot buttons, making the total operation a trouble-free, one-touch solution.