Patent ID: 7283890

Claim:
A transfer system for an object to be processed, said system comprising: a host computer for managing production of a semiconductor device; a plurality of semiconductor producing units for producing a semiconductor device from an object to be processed, under control of said host computer; a plurality of automatic transfer units, each of which automatically transfers said object along the same trajectory to deliver said object to a corresponding one of said semiconductor producing units and to receive said object from said corresponding one of said semiconductor producing units, one by one, at the request of said corresponding one of said semiconductor producing units, the plurality of automatic transfer units moving in synchronism with each other along the same trajectory; and a transfer operating unit, associated with said host computer, for operating said plurality of automatic transfer units, wherein said transfer operating unit has a control part having a scheduler and dispatcher for preparing an operating schedule for each of said automatic transfer units on the basis of the relationship in position between each of said semiconductor producing units and each of said automatic transfer units, for determining optimum transfer paths for said automatic transfer units, and for assigning a corresponding one of said automatic transfer units to a corresponding one of said optimum transfer paths, and said transfer operating unit updates an operating schedule of operating said plurality of automatic transfer units in accordance with a sequentially varying inspection status.