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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.

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1. A Bernoulli wand for moving a semiconductor wafer into and out of a high temperature wafer processing environment, the wand comprising:an elongated quartz arm to be supported on a proximal end by a device for moving the arm; a quartz pickup head mounted to a distal end of the arm and having a plu

1. A Bernoulli wand for moving a semiconductor wafer into and out of a high temperature wafer processing environment, the wand comprising:an elongated quartz arm to be supported on a proximal end by a device for moving the arm; a quartz pickup head mounted to a distal end of the arm and having a plurality of gas outlets through a lower wall from which gas may be expelled to create a reduced pressure region above a wafer and lift the wafer without contact with the head; and a resilient elongated quartz wafer stop removably mounted on the pickup arm and including a pair of spaced portions spaced from but adjacent to a proximal end of the head to limit the proximal movement of a wafer lifted by the head.