Applied Materials, Inc.

Intevac, Inc.

Richard H Cooke

Peter I Edwards

Kevin P Fairbairn

Terry Bluck

Vinay K Shah

Peter T Kindersley

Tristan Richard Holtam

William Eugene Runstadler, Jr

Stephen G Young

Christopher P Wright

Michael T Wauk, Ii

Frederick J Robinson

John J Perrins

Geoffrey D Paffett

Lionel Marmie

Stephen S Chamberlain

Clive Allum

Peter Wood

Paul Stonestreet

Richard Naylor-Smith

Anthony Adlam

Bert Webber

Simon Frederick Dillon

Peter I T Edwards

A system for transporting substrates from an atmospheric pressure to high vacuum pressure and comprising: a rough vacuum chamber having an entry valve and an exit opening; a high vacuum chamber having an entry opening, the high vacuum chamber coupled to the rough vacuum chamber such that the exit opening and the entry opening are aligned; a valve situated between the exit opening and the entry opening; a first conveyor belt provided in the rough vacuum chamber; a second conveyor provided in the high vacuum chamber; a sensing element provided in the high vacuum chamber to enable detection of broken substrates on the second conveyor; and, a mechanism provided on the second conveyor belt enabling dumping of broken substrates onto the bottom of the high vacuum chamber.

High throughput load lock for solar wafers

An end station for an ion implanter has a vacuum chamber which receives an ion beam. A wafer holder is mounted at the distal end of a scanning arm which has its proximal end attached to the chamber wall. The scanning arm has at least two rotary joints providing articulation of the arm to permit movement of the wafer holder in two orthogonal scan directions in a scan plane transverse to the beam path through the vacuum chamber. A scanning arm driver moves the substrate holder in the scan plane in a desired two-dimensional scan pattern relative to the beam path.

Multi directional mechanical scanning in an ion implanter

A gripper for loading wafers onto an implant wheel W and removing them from the wheel. The gripper having a substrate engaging mechanism () for engaging the substrate and a means for rotating this substrate engaging mechanism, such that wafers can be removed from the implant wheel, rotated to a second orientation and replaced without leaving the process chamber.

Method and apparatus for implanting semiconductor wafer substrates

The invention relates to an ion implantation apparatus comprising a vacuum chamber, an ion beam generator generating an ion beam in the vacuum chamber and an implant wheel in the vacuum chamber. The wheel has a plurality of circumferentially distributed wafer support elements. A scanning arm is mounted for reciprocal movement about a scan axis and has a free end supporting the implant wheel for rotation about a wheel axis, so that rotation of the implant wheel about the axis brings the wafer support elements successively to intercept the ion beam and reciprocation of the scanning arm about the scan axis scans the ion beam across the wafer support elements. A motor drives the scanning arm, the motor having a drive shaft connected directly to a cycloid type gearbox, the output of which directly drives the scanning arm.

Ion implantation apparatus

A scan wheel for an ion implanter adapted for carrying a plurality of semiconductor wafers. The scan wheel being rotatable about an axis comprises a central hub, a plurality of separate spoke arms mounted on and extending from the central hub, and a plurality of wafer support elements on the outer ends of respective spoke arms. Each spoke arm has a dimension in the direction of rotation substantially less than the dimension of the corresponding wafer support element, a front face extending generally in the direction of rotation and side faces extending rearwardly from the front face. Each side face does not extend outwards beyond a rearward projection of the corresponding front face which, in a cross section, tapers symmetrically inwards, preferably by 7&deg;, on each side relative to the axis of rotation.

Scanning wheel for ion implantation process chamber

An ion implanter for implanting ions into a substrate comprises an ion beam generator for generating a beam of ions, support means for carrying a substrate to be implanted with beam ions, scanning means for scanning at least one of the substrate and the ion beam relative to the other so that the beam traverses the substrate along a predetermined path. Monitoring means are arranged to monitor changes in the proportion of the ion beam cross-sectional area incident on the substrate as the ion beam traverses the edge of the substrate from a position in the scan at which the proportion is finite to a position at which the proportion is zero. The implanter further comprises detection means responsive to the monitoring means for detecting the moment when the proportion reaches zero from a finite value as the ion beam and/or substrate moves along the predetermined path, and operative means responsive to the detection means detecting the moment when the proportion of the beam cross-sectional area incident on the substrate reaches zero, for performing a subsequent operation in the ion implanter.

Apparatus and method for improved scanning efficiency in an ion implanter

Ion implantation apparatus has an implant wheel in a vacuum chamber. The implant wheel has a number of circumferentially distributed wafer holding positions and is arranged to spin so that the wafers successively intercept an ion beam. The implant wheel is mounted at the free end of a scanning arm which itself is mounted for reciprocating movement on a wall of the vacuum chamber by means of a rotary vacuum seal. A wheel drive motor is mounted in the vacuum chamber on the rotational axis of the implant wheel and the wheel and drive motor combination can be tilted at the end of the scanning arm to adjust the angle of implantation. The tilt actuator is inside the vacuum chamber mounted on the scanning arm and the tilt axis is such that the axis of rotation of the implant wheel remains always in the same plane as the axis of scan of the scanning arm.

A system and methods for handling semiconductor wafers and dummy wafers in semiconductor process equipment such as an ion implanter. Tray assemblies are provided, each of which is adapted for releasably holding and automatically aligning a standard semiconductor wafer cassette next to a dedicated dummy-wafer cassette. The dummy wafers are used to complete a full load of wafers when there are insufficient wafers in the standard cassette. The trays are mounted on the paddles of a load lock carousel, which indexes the trays to an unloading/loading station. There, an indexer assembly picks up and indexes the tray so that the standard and dummy wafers can be selectively lifted by a vertical transport mechanism to a pivotal wafer chuck for transfer into the process equipment.

Systems and methods for wafer handling in semiconductor process equipment

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Storrington, United Kingdom

Richard H Cooke