Heraeus Quarzschmelze Gmbh

Geoffrey Hayward

Karl A Schulke

Christopher J Bayne

An oven for the heat treatment of semiconductor substrates, especially a diffusion oven, having an upright, heatable quartz tube and a support system made of up rods or tubes into which one or more diffusion racks can be inserted which accommodate the wafer-like substrates separated from one another and substantially parallel to one another. To create a vertically operated oven having a rheologically efficient construction in which the support system for holding the diffusion racks will be highly variable, the support system has at least two vertical supports arranged parallel to one another, on which at least one rack rest 9 is disposed, on which rack rest the diffusion rack is placed such that the substrate wafers 8 stand substantially on edge during the treatment.

Oven for the heat treatment of semiconductor substrates

An apparatus for loading a furnace with semiconductor wafers is known, which has at least two heat treatment chambers (1A, 1B, 1C, 1D), each of them having an associated stationary loading unit (8) with a receptacle movable in the direction of the furnace axis via a feed apparatus and having a loading system (2A, 2B, 2C, 2D) for semiconductor wafers. In order to provide such an apparatus for automatically loading the furnace with semiconductors which facilitates loading and overcomes the disadvantages of the known apparatuses, the apparatus according to the invention has a common central loading station (9) for all the semiconductor loading systems (2), and these loading systems are removable from the loading unit (8). Further, a transport device (10) is provided which is movable in two directions at right angles to one another as well as at right angles to the axis of the furnace and which has a coupling unit (12) for moving a respective loading system (2), loaded with semiconductor wafers, between the loading station (9) and the furnace loading unit (8).

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Frimley, United Kingdom

Geoffrey Hayward