Wafer holder
US5555634A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Dec 16, 1994 |
| Grant date | Sep 17, 1996 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Dec 16, 2014 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH01L21/67
- WIPO fieldSemiconductors
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A wafer holder for handling wafers, particularly during a vapor drying process during automated wafer processing, provides for change of the diameter of the wafers to be held without replacement of one wafer holder with another in a wafer processing apparatus. The wafer holder is a unitary structure having a plurality of wafer holding portions, each wafer holding portion having a geometry appropriate to a single wafer diameter which differs from the diameter of wafers to be held by other wafer holding portions of the unitary structure. The wafer holder is preferably secured onto a robot arm in the wafer processing apparatus and can be rotated in orientation by a mechanical linkage in the robot arm in order to receive and hold wafers of a specific diameter being processed in the wafer processing apparatus at any given time. When wafers of another, different, diameter are to be processed, the unitary structure is rotated, preferably in an automatic fashion, to rapidly present a geometry of another wafer holder portion appropriate to the new wafer diameter by bringing the wafer holder to a changed orientation.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.