MATERIAL LOADER APPARATUS AND METHOD USING A SINGLE IMAGE RECOGNITION DEVICE FOR BAR CODE AND VISION MARK RECOGNITION

An apparatus for transferring a wafer carrier is capable of recognizing both a bar code of the wafer carrier and a vision mark for position correction attached to a processing equipment. It is possible to recognize both the bar code and the vision mark using a single image recognition device, by determining a required focal length for a lens in the image recognition device, and by determining the required size of the vision mark. Therefore, a separate bar code reader to recognize the bar code is not required in the processing equipment. This results in a reduced cost and increased productivity, since the processing equipment need not to be shut down for installation of a bar code reader.