Patent ID: 7836845

Claim:
A substrate carrying and processing apparatus, comprising: a carrier block that positions carriers each able to receive a plurality of substrates therein; a processing block including processing units that each provide a proper process to each substrate which is taken out from one of the carriers; substrate carrying means that transfers each substrate taken out from the carrier block to each processing unit in the processing block and configured such that the substrate carrying means can be moved at least in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction; a substrate storing section which is provided between the carrier block and the processing block and able to store a plurality of substrates therein; and substrate transfer means which is able to transfer each substrate to and from the carrier block, that transfers the substrate to the substrate storing section, and configured such that the substrate transfer means can be moved at least in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction, wherein the substrate storing section has openings through which the substrate carrying means and the substrate transfer means can transfer each substrate along two directions crossing to each other, and includes a plurality of placing shelves arranged with a space relative to each other and supporting the bottom surface of the substrate, wherein the substrate carrying means and substrate transfer means are configured such that they can be advanced into and retracted from the substrate storing section and such that the substrate carrying means and the substrate transfer means can be overlapped to the corresponding placing shelf in the vertical direction, when viewed in the horizontal direction, and wherein the space between each adjacent pair of the plurality of placing shelves is designed to be narrower than the thickness of each of the substrate carrying means and the substrate transfer means.