Planning and realization of a highly intelligent and flexible transport system for the material distribution of minienvironment

Automated material distribution systems are very important for cost effective wafer manufactuing by minienvironments. Especially for the cost effective and automated transport of minienvironments the IPA developed together with the company ACR the highly intelligent and flexible transport system CLEANTRACK. This transport system can be easily adapted in new and in existing semicondustor fabs. The transport system is easily upgradeabel from 200 mm up to 300 mm wafer diameters. Also very important is the planning of the insertion and the dimensioning of material distribution systems. Especially in the pre-planning phase data for objective decisions about economic viabilities and investments will be required. To find out this necessary planning data a very quickly and simple planning method was developed. This planning method based on conventional methods and includes optimized material flow strategies for the semiconductor manufacturing. Comparisions between planning method and simulatio n studies showed that the planning data find out by the developed planning method are good enough for a fast and cheap predimensioning of material distribution systems