Applied Materials, Inc.

Picker International, Inc.

Alex Lurye

Homayoun Talieh

Robert P Hunt

George C Riser

A coater having a controllable pressurized process chamber for applying photoresist to a wafer is provided. The controllable pressurized process chamber reduces the evaporation of solvent in the photoresist during a spin-on process step. Reducing premature curing of the photoresist results in improved uniform planarization of the photoresist layer. Contaminants in the photoresist are also reduced by having an environmentally controllable process chamber. A housing having a upper and lower section forms a process chamber surrounding a wafer chuck. The upper housing section includes a solvent vapor opening for introducing pressurized solvent vapor into the process chamber and the lower housing section includes an exhaust opening. The upper housing section also includes an opening for introducing photoresist onto a wafer. A control device is coupled to the exhaust opening and a vacuum device for controlling the pressure in the process chamber. A sealed recycling photoresist container and recycling apparatus is also coupled to the exhaust opening to store unused photoresist. The unused photoresist may be used in subsequent spin-on process steps, thereby reducing processing costs.

Coater having a controllable pressurized process chamber for semiconductor processing

An image, such as a radiographic diagnostic image, is increased in brightness by an image intensifer (B). A multiport image distributor (C) receives the image from an convergent lens (34) and distributes it among a plurality of outlet ports (38, 42, 44, 46, 48). A plurality of cameras (D) or other image receiving processing devices are connected with the outlet ports. The image distributor includes a plurality of modules (50A, 50B, 50C), each of which moves a beam splitter (60) into and out of a beam splitting position. In the beam splitting position, each beam splitter divides the received image between two of the output ports. The four modules in the preferred embodiment enable the image to be distributed among up to five output ports.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Alex Lurye