By Kalwinder Kaur
Adept Technology declared that it will showcase its new Autonomous Indoor Vehicles (AIVs) that enables automated-transport of SMIF pods during the SEMICON West 2012 show. This industrial event is being held between July 10 and 12 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. Two Adept transporters will interact with show attendees.
The Adept SPC-4200 and the Adept SPH-2200 are Autonomous Indoor Vehicles (AIVs) for the automated-transport of SMIF pods.
The Adept SPC-4200 and Adept SPH-2200 are the new products that can handle as well as transport SMIF pods. Adept Motivity includes a complete array of sensors and vehicle controls that support Adept's AIVs for self-navigation, and can carry out functions like path-planning, mapping, and safety and does not require any facility modification. Adept Motivity is a major feature that makes Adept AIVs unique among the traditional automated guided vehicles (AGVs) by providing infrastructure-free navigation to enable deployment and maintenance of automated material handling systems.
The Adept SPC-4200 is a safe and autonomous indoor vehicle that provides SMIF pods within the present or new semiconductor fabs without needing any extra space. Based on a Motivity technology, it enables rapid movement of platforms within narrow aisles and fully-packed environments, thereby promoting seamless operations.
Being a completely mechanized autonomous indoor vehicle, the Adept SPH-2200 has been deployed for the exchange of SMIF pods from various stations such as storage racks, processing equipment, and stockers.
SMIF pod movement can be activated by equipping the facility's production software system with Adept Enterprise Manager Software for distributing transport requests throughout a series of mobile transports. The system contributes to valued production with minimal vibration and handling, through autonomous movement and placement of pods between machines. The operational efficiency has been enhanced by tracking Work-In-Progress and re-applying high-cost labor from handling goods to higher-value tasks.
The SPC-4200 and SPH-2200 mobile transporters promote using human capital and near infinite flexibility for transporting goods, which are key factors in "Lean methodology". The Adept SPC-4200 and SPH-2200 is ideal for transportation, motion and waiting.
Source: http://www.adept.com/