ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,387,959, issued on Aug. 12, was assigned to Rorze Corp. (Japan).
"Transport device having local purge function" was invented by Katsunori Sakata (Fukuyama, Japan), Yasuhisa Sato (Ibara, Japan), Hidekazu Okutsu (Fukuyama, Japan) and Kenji Hirota (Fukuyama, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The purpose of the present invention is to provide, at low cost, a transport apparatus 2 which is capable of transporting a semiconductor wafer W between a FOUP 19 and a processing apparatus 3 without exposing a surface to be processed of the semiconductor wafer to an oxidizing atmosphere. This transport apparatus 2 includes a load port 20 that has a...