Applied Materials, Inc.

Sokudo Co., Ltd.

Kim Ramkumar Vellore

Alexander N Lerner

Andrew J Constant

Michael P Karazim

Stephen Moffatt

Roey Shaviv

Jeffrey Allen Brodine

Leonid Mark Tertitski

Kevin Vincent Moraes

Steven Trey Tindel

Aaron Muir Hunter

Bruce E Adams

Jiping Li

Samuel C Howells

Steven Victor Sansoni

Norman L Tam

Aaron Jacob Miller

Dinesh Kanawade

Michael Liu

Niranjan Kumar

Colin Fox

Schubert S Chu

Kallol Bera

William Tyler Weaver

Harald Herchen

Qiwei Liang

Jason M Schaller

Benjamin B Riordon

Robert Brent Vopat

Zhepeng Cong

Jacob Newman

Matthew D Scotney-Castle

Jeffrey Charles Blahnik

Shay Assaf

Ribhu Gautam

Shreyas Patil Shanthaveeraswamy

Kumaresan Nagarajan

Amikam Sade

Erica Renee Porras

Ami Sade

Vijay Singh

Erwin Polar

A method and apparatus for measuring a temperature of a substrate located in a semiconductor processing environment is disclosed. The substrate has a top surface and an edge surface, and is positioned in a prescribed location within the semiconductor processing environment. An infrared camera oriented to view one side of the edge surface of the substrate is triggered to obtain an infrared image of the one side of the edge surface of the substrate. The infrared image is processed to obtain a temperature profile of the substrate.

Method for non-contact low substrate temperature measurement

The present disclosure generally relates to a substrate support for processing of semiconductor substrates. In one example, the substrate support has a body. The body has a top surface configured to support a substrate thereon. The body has a bottom surface opposite the top surface. The body has an upper portion disposed at the top surface and a lower portion disposed at the bottom surface. An IR blocking material is encased by the upper portion and the lower portion, wherein the IR blocking material is an optically opaque at IR wavelengths and the lower portion is optically transparent at IR wavelengths.

Quartz susceptor for accurate non-contact temperature measurement

A carrier FOUP and a method of placing a carrier are provided. The carrier FOUP includes a body and a door. The body includes a plurality of chamfers, and one or more carriers are placed on, and supported by, the plurality of chamfers. The method of placing a carrier includes placing the carrier in the carrier FOUP and closing the door of the carrier FOUP. When the door is closed, the door pushes against the carrier and aligns the carrier with the alignment feature. The alignment features align the carrier, removing the need to be aligned by the factory interface robot when placing or removing the carrier from the carrier FOUP.

Carrier FOUP and a method of placing a carrier

An alignment module for housing and cleaning masks. The alignment module comprises a mask stocker, a cleaning chamber, an alignment chamber, an alignment stage a transfer robot. The mask stocker is configured to house a mask cassette configured to store a plurality of masks. The cleaning chamber is configured to clean the plurality of masks by providing one or more cleaning gases into a chamber after a mask is inserted into the cleaning chamber. The alignment stage is configured to support a carrier and a substrate. The transfer robot is configured to transfer a mask from one or more of the alignment stage and the mask stocker to the cleaning chamber.

Alignment module with a cleaning chamber

An alignment module for positioning a mask on a substrate comprises a mask stocker, an alignment stage, and a transfer robot. The mask stocker houses a mask cassette that stores a plurality of masks. The alignment stage is configured to support a carrier and a substrate. The transfer robot is configured to transfer one of the one or more masks from the mask stocker to the alignment stage and position the mask over the substrate. The alignment module may be part of an integrated platform having one or more transfer chambers, a factory interface having a substrate carrier chamber and one or more processing chambers. A carrier may be coupled to a substrate within the substrate carrier chamber and moved between the processing chambers to generate a semiconductor device.

System and method for aligning a mask with a substrate

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a substrate transfer device having a contactless latch and contactless coupling providing the ability to lock and unlock the substrate transfer device at atmospheric and vacuum pressure with without particle generation at a base of the substrate transfer device, the contactless latch, and the contactless coupling. The substrate transfer device includes a lid having one or more lid grooves, a base having one or more base grooves, and a rotation member rotatably coupled to the lid. Each flange of one or more flanges of the substrate transfer device is rotatable in aligned lid grooves and base grooves, and each flange of the one or more flanges has an arm with a ferromagnetic material coupled thereto. The base is coupled to the lid when the ferromagnetic material of the arm is aligned and spaced from a magnetic material of a slot of the one or more base grooves.

Contactless latch and coupling for vacuum wafer transfer cassette

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to a processing system for forming one or more layers of a photodiode. In one embodiment, the processing system includes a transfer chamber, a plurality of processing chambers, and a controller configured to cause a process to be performed in the processing system. The process includes performing a pre-clean process on a substrate, aligning and placing a first mask on the substrate, depositing a first layer on the substrate, and depositing a second layer on the substrate. The processing system can form layers of a photodiode in a low defect, cost effective, and high utilization manner.

Processing system for forming layers

A chucking station comprises a chuck, a power supply, and one or more pumping elements. The chuck comprises a plurality of first vacuum ports configured to interface with a surface of a substrate and a plurality of second vacuum ports configured to interface with a surface of a carrier. The chuck further comprises a first electrical pin configured to be in electrical communication with a first electrode of the carrier, and a second electrical pin configured to be in electrical communication with a second electrode of the carrier. The power supply is configured to apply a chucking voltage and a de-chucking voltage to the first and second electrical pins. The one or more pumping elements is coupled to the first and second vacuum ports and configured to generate a vacuum between the substrate and the chuck and a vacuum between the carrier and the chuck.

System and method for electrostatically chucking a substrate to a carrier

A method includes aligning and positioning a carrier in a predetermined orientation and location within a first front opening pod (FOUP) of a cluster tool, transferring the carrier to a charging station of the cluster tool, transferring a substrate from a second front opening pod (FOUP) of the cluster tool to the charging station and chucking the substrate onto the carrier, transferring the carrier having the substrate thereon from the charging station to a factory interface of the cluster tool, aligning the carrier having the substrate thereon in the factory interface of the cluster tool such that during substrate processing within a processing platform of the cluster tool the carrier is properly oriented and positioned relative to components of the processing platform, where the processing platform comprises one or more processing chambers, transferring the aligned carrier having the substrate thereon from the factory interface to the processing platform of the cluster tool for substrate processing, and transferring the aligned carrier having the processed substrate thereon from the processing platform to the factory interface.

Method of pre aligning carrier, wafer and carrier-wafer combination for throughput efficiency

Substrate carrier apparatus having a hard mask are disclosed herein. In some embodiments, a substrate carrier apparatus includes a carrier body having a support surface to support a substrate; and a mask assembly disposed above the support surface. The mask assembly includes an annular frame disposed atop the support surface; and a hard mask coupled to and disposed within the annular frame above the support surface, wherein the hard mask includes one or more openings arranged in a predetermined pattern and disposed through the hard mask, and wherein the hard mask includes a plurality of spacer elements extending from a bottom surface of the hard mask.

Substrate carrier having hard mask

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to methods and apparatus for visual lamp failure detection in a processing chamber, such as an RTP chamber. Visual feedback is facilitated through the use of a wide-angle lens positioned to view lamps within the process chamber. The wide-angle lens is positioned within a probe and secured using a spring in order to withstand high temperature processing. A camera coupled to the lens is adapted to capture an image of the lamps within the process chamber. The captured image of the lamps is then compared to a reference image to determine if the lamps are functioning as desired.

Visual feedback for process control in RTP chambers

A method and apparatus for detecting substrate misalignment (i.e., position displacement error) and/or substrate support misalignment. According to certain aspects, a method for detecting a misalignment of an object in a processing system is provided. The method generally includes obtaining a first image of the object, determining first values associated with pixels in at least one region of the first image, calculating at least one of a center of gravity value of the pixels in the at least one region or an average weight of the pixels in the at least one region, and detecting a misalignment of the object based on at least one of the calculated center of gravity or average weight of the pixels in the at least one region.

System and method to detect substrate and/or substrate support misalignment using imaging

Embodiments described herein relate to apparatus and methods of thermal processing. More specifically, apparatus and methods described herein relate to laser thermal treatment of semiconductor substrates by increasing the uniformity of energy distribution in an image at a surface of a substrate.

Process sheet resistance uniformity improvement using multiple melt laser exposures

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Kim Ramkumar Vellore