Novellus Systems Incorporated

William Tom Batchelder

Fred J Chetcuti

Lawrence Allen Gochberg

A curing module for use in fabricating semiconductor wafers is provided. The cure module comprises a housing and a bottom plate. The housing also contains a heating plate adjacent a top surface of the housing and side walls extending from the top surface. The housing sidewalls, the heating plate and the bottom plate define a chamber within the cure module. Films disposed on semiconductor wafers are cured within the chamber by being raised on lift pins to the heating plate during a heating operation and then lowered on the lift pins to the bottom plate during a cooling operation.

Inverted hot plate cure module

A system and method for thermal curing of substrates are provided. In one example, a pair of vertical furnace tubes are configured with a hot plate positioned between the lower regions of the furnace tubes and connected to each tube by a passageway. A cooling chamber is positioned between the furnace tubes in an upper region and connected to both tubes by an upper passageway. A wafer transport is configured within each furnace tube to transition wafers from the lower region of each tube, through a middle region of each tube, and to the upper region of each tube. A method is provided in which substrates are pre-heated on the hot plate and then transitioned to a slot in the wafer transport in the vertical furnace tube. The wafer transport is indexed one position as additional substrates are pre-heated and transitioned. The substrates are thermally cured and are then transitioned from the wafer transport to the cooling chamber employing a first in/first out process. As substrates are being transitioned out of a wafer transport from one furnace tube, more substrates are being transitioned into the wafer transport of the other furnace tube.

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Oakland, CA, United States of America

William Tom Batchelder