Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

Ching-Ling Lee

Chien-Chih Chen

Ren-Dou Lee

Yao-Min Yu

Kuo-Hung Liao

Huai-Tei Yang

Hsing-Jui Lee

Yen-Hsing Chen

Suan-Jun Kuan

Fu-Kuo Tseng

In an embodiment, a system includes: a cassette comprising a slit opening configured to house a wafer; a blade configured to move the wafer to and from the slit opening by extending into the slit opening, wherein a blade thickness of the blade is at most &#x2156; of a height of the slit opening and wherein the blade is configured to secure the wafer within a pocket on the blade that is at least &#x2154; of a wafer thickness of the wafer.

Shiftless wafer blades

A truncated dummy plate which is suitable for promoting substantially uniform flow of process gases among all regions on the surface of a substrate to facilitate deposition of a film having uniform thickness on the substrate. The truncated dummy plate has a circular shape with a flat edge provided in the curved edge of the dummy plate. At least two, and preferably, about three or four of the dummy plates are positioned in the sites on a wafer boat which are in relatively close proximity to a gas outlet in a process furnace typically during a LPCVD process carried out in the furnace. The flat or truncated edges of the dummy plates are disposed on the gas inlet side of the process chamber, with the round edges of the dummy plates disposed on the gas outlet side of the process chamber.

Truncated dummy plate for process furnace

A method for dry cleaning a wafer container such as a SMIF pod that is equipped with a bottom mounting plate covered with contaminating particles. In the method, the wafer containers are mounted in openings of the enclosure such that the bottom mounting plates with the contaminating particles are exposed to an air-tight cavity of the enclosure. A purge gas flow is then directed to the bottom of the plate to dislodge the contaminating particles which are then picked up by a vacuum conduit positioned juxtaposed to the purge gas conduit and connected to a factory vacuum source such that contaminating particles dislodged are immediately removed. The present invention novel method can be carried out without using wet bench cleaning while achieving desirable and efficient cleaning results.

Method for dry cleaning a wafer container

Growing community of inventors

Hsin-Chu, Taiwan

Ching-Ling Lee