Spatially-arranged chemical processing station
US6939403B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Nov 19, 2002 |
| Grant date | Sep 6, 2005 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Dec 6, 2022 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH01L21/67769
- WIPO fieldSemiconductors
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
The present invention discloses a station, e.g., for IC fabrication with a flexible configuration. It consists of an array of processing chambers, which are grouped into processing modules and arranged in a two-dimensional fashion, in vertical levels and horizontal rows, and is capable of operating independent of each other. Each processing chamber can perform electroless deposition and other related processing steps sequentially on a wafer with more than one processing fluid without having to remove it from the chamber. The system is served by a single common industrial robot, which may have random access to all the working chambers and cells of the storage unit for transporting wafers between the wafer cassettes and inlet/outlets ports of any of the chemical processing chambers. The station occupies a service-room floor space and a clean-room floor space. The processing modules and the main chemical management unit connected to the local chemical supply unit occupy a service-room floor space, while the robot and the wafer storage cassettes are located in a clean room. Thus, in distinction to the known cluster-tool machines, the station of the invention makes it possible to transf…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.