News Article
Major Foundry Selects Adept Transporter Robots
Adept Technology, Inc. has deployed an initial batch of mobile robots to a major semiconductor manufacturer for the automated transport of semiconductor pods.
"Adept is very pleased to have begun introducing mobile technology to the semiconductor and cleantech space through this initial production deployment with such a large and respected client," said Rush LaSelle, vice president and general manager of mobile robots. "Our mobile products are delivering strong returns on invested capital throughout a diverse set of industries by increasing production flexibility, providing more deterministic delivery times when compared to manual processes, and enabling the redeployment of labour to high value tasks."
The use of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) has been explored by semiconductor fabs for decades, but such robots have so far not been utilised very much. This is mainly down to the inherent nature of traditional AGVs which have lacked navigational flexibility and ease of installation.
Adept's indoor navigation technology and small platforms function well within crowded environments and allow for non-disruptive installation in sensitive facilities. Adept's newly released SPC-4200 and SPH-2200 transporters are used to carry pods from one machine tool to another (intra-bay loading) and between various process areas within the fab (inter-bay transfer). The pods are enclosed in plastic boxes that encase a set of semiconductor wafers.
