While the manufacturing of integrated circuits (IC) has become a mostly automated process, the loading of the ICs into storage and shipping tubes 105 still requires a large amount of human interaction. A major stumbling block to the automation is the removal and insertion of retention pins 115 in the tubes. The present invention uses pressurized air 406 to hold a partially extracted retention pin 115 in position while the tube 105 is loaded. Once loaded, the retention pin 115 is reinserted. By not fully extracting the retention pin 115, alignment is maintained, simplifying the reinsertion step.
This is a divisional application of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/190,907 filed Jul. 8, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,796,023, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
