초록 ▼

A dual-arm wafer hand-off assembly includes a pair of pickup arms for transferring wafers within a wafer processing system. The two pickup arms are adapted to move such that the wafer on one of the arms can be positioned over the other arm and handed off. In one version, a Bernoulli-style wand trans

A dual-arm wafer hand-off assembly includes a pair of pickup arms for transferring wafers within a wafer processing system. The two pickup arms are adapted to move such that the wafer on one of the arms can be positioned over the other arm and handed off. In one version, a Bernoulli-style wand translates along a linear guideway and may be positioned over a paddle-style pickup arm. The wafer carried by the Bernoulli wand can be handed off to the paddle by shutting off the flow of gas from the Bernoulli wand jets. The two pickup arms may be mounted on linear slides and adapted to translate between a load/unload chamber and a processing chamber, or the guideway may be adapted to rotate to allow transfer of wafers to multiple processing chambers in a cluster system. One of the pickup arms is preferably an all-quartz Bernoulli-style pickup arm having a proximal arm portion and a distal wand. The arm portion is formed by a pair of juxtaposed plates with a gas passage therethrough, and the distal wand is also formed by a pair of juxtaposed plates with a plurality of gas passages therethrough. The arm portion and the wand are fused together at their junction region. A wafer stop element is formed by a single quartz rod and is clipped to the arm portion to present a plurality of wafer stop pegs at a proximal periphery of the wand. The wafer stop element may be rapidly installed or removed without fasteners or bonding.

대표청구항 ▼

[ What is claimed is:] [1.] A semiconductor wafer processing apparatus comprising:walls defining an input chamber to receive a wafer from an external source;walls defining a handling chamber adjacent the input chamber;a first port between the input chamber and handling chamber;walls defining a proce

[ What is claimed is:] [1.] A semiconductor wafer processing apparatus comprising:walls defining an input chamber to receive a wafer from an external source;walls defining a handling chamber adjacent the input chamber;a first port between the input chamber and handling chamber;walls defining a processing chamber adjacent the handling chamber;a second port between the processing chamber and handling chamber; anda wafer transfer assembly located in the handling chamber having a guideway and two wafer transfer arms moveable in a linear path on said guideway, a first arm being extensible on said guideway from a retracted position in the handling chamber through the first port into the input chamber and retractable into the handling chamber into said retracted position, and a second arm being extensible on said guideway from a retracted position in the handling chamber through the second port into the processing chamber, the arms including end portions configured to carry a wafer, with the end portions being in overlapping position when said arms are in their retracted positions so as to enable the end portions to transfer a wafer from the end portion of one arm to the end portion of the other arm in the handling chamber.