ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,362,207, issued on July 15, was assigned to Sinfonia Technology Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).
"EFEM" was invented by Toshihiro Kawai (Tokyo) and Gengoro Ogura (Tokyo).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Particles in an accommodation chamber are also easily discharged while facilitating replacement of an atmosphere in the accommodation chamber with an inert gas. An EFEM includes a load port 4, a housing configured to define, in the housing, a transfer chamber closed by connecting the load port 4 to an opening provided in a partition wall, a supply pipe for supplying nitrogen to a transfer chamber, and a discharge pipe 49 for discharging a gas in the transf...