Mks Instruments, Inc.

Watlow Electric Manufacturing Company

Wenzel Instruments, Aps

Youfan Gu

Paul Dozoretz

David C Neumeister

Garry Holcomb

Ole Wenzel

Kevin Grout

James M Mueller

William Bohlinger

Eric Ellis

James P Hentges

Kurt W Peterson

James H Kreisel

Dale Thomas Wolfe

Jeffrey D Kiernan

Robert O Moran

Shawn Leininger

Curtis A Foster

Jason R Powell

Charles C Lawhead

Mark Louis-Gilmer Hoven

Darren Livingston

Matthew C Grout

Bradly Raymond Lefevre

Stacy Wade

Sven Nuesken

James Stafford

Benjamin Goss

Donald W Higgins

Dana S Hauschultz

Bradly Lefevre

Powder and deposition control in a throttle valve includes nozzle inserts in the valve body that form annular plenums and annular nozzles for injecting annular flows of cleaning gas adjacent to the inside wall surface of the valve body for cleaning powders and depositions off surfaces in the valve body and off the closure member of the throttle valve. The annular flows of cleaning gas can be in intermittent, periodic, or in pulsed bursts or at a steady-state flow rates to dislodge powder particles stuck to the inside surface of the throttle valve, to etch or reactively clean solid deposits, or to prevent or minimize build-up of powder particles or solid deposits in the throttle valve.

Powder and deposition control in throttle valves

An expandable and contractible shield around a bellows in a valve protects the bellows from corrosive gases and solid particles in the valve chamber. In a manifold valve assembly with multiple outlet ports and multiple valves in a common valve chamber, a respective expandable and contractible shield around each respective bellows of each respective valve in the assembly separates each bellows from corrosive gases and solid particles in the common valve chamber regardless of whether one or all of the valves in the assembly is opened or closed.

Corrosion and deposition protected valve apparatus and method

A valve has a major valve closure member with a valve stem for opening and closing a major port in a valve chamber. An alternate flow path extends through the major valve closing member. Flow is controlled through the alternate flow path by directing a minor valve actuating fluid through the valve stem to apply pressure on a minor valve piston in the major valve closure member to move a minor valve closure member in the major valve closure member between a closed mode in which the minor valve closure member closes the alternate flow path and an opened mode in which the minor valve closure member opens the alternate flow path. The minor valve actuating fluid is sealed from the alternate flow path by a flexible diaphragm positioned between the minor valve actuating fluid and the minor valve piston, so the pressure of the minor valve actuating fluid is applied to the minor valve piston via the flexible diaphragm.

Method of two-stage flow control

A secondary reaction chamber with a mesh reactor element and a heater assembly are positioned in a foreline between a CVD reaction chamber and a vacuum pump to mix and react all previously unreacted precursor reactants to remove them from the effluent before they can reach and damage the vacuum pump.

Method and apparatus for preventing ALD reactants from damaging vacuum pumps

A two-stage, slow-start valve includes a minor valve assembly inside a major valve closure member of a major valve closure assembly so that fluid can flow through the valve at a higher rate by opening the major valve assembly or at a lower rate by opening the minor valve assembly while the major valve closure assembly is closed in order to allow fluid to flow in an alternate flow path through the major valve closure member. The example minor valve closure assembly has a minor valve closure member that is actuated to open by a minor valve piston on which minor valve actuating fluid is applied to the minor piston via a diaphragm seal positioned between the minor piston and the minor valve actuating fluid. Both the major valve closure assembly and the minor valve closure assembly can be pneumatically actuated to open.

Two-stage, slow-start valve apparatus

A multiple heater control system includes cables, connectors, and junction boxes for user-friendly daisy chain connections of heater controllers and heaters in various configurations or combinations of individually controlled heater series and/or master and slave heater series. The heater controllers include process control of AC power to the heaters and upper-limit safety shutoff that is substantially independent from the process control. The heater controllers also have variable levels of control, adjustment, display, and communications functionality in a base module that is expandable to various levels with expansion modules that are attachable to and detachable from the base module. Connector, cable, and junction configurations, adapters, and latch features enhance user friendliness.

Heater control with high-limit thermal safety shutdown

A fast-acting, pneumatic diaphragm valve includes a diaphragm valve closure member, a pneumatic piston that provides a closure force on the closure member, and a solenoid pilot valve that controls pressurized air to the piston to cause the piston to move in a reciprocal manner so that the closure member opens and closes the valve. The valve seat seal can be elastomer for enhancing speed, and the solenoid pilot valve can be positioned and configured with air flow longitudinally through or past the solenoid armature to enhance speed.

Fast-acting pneumatic diaphragm valve

A method and apparatus integrates differential pressure measurements and absolute pressure measurements to provide a continuous absolute pressure profile over a wide range of pressures on a single integrated scale. The absolute pressure measurements and differential pressure measurements are obtained, and a correlation factor between the absolute pressure measurements and the differential pressure measurements is determined. The correlation factor is used to normalize the differential pressure measurements to virtual absolute pressure values on a common absolute pressure scale with the absolute pressure measurements. An absolute pressure profile over a wide pressure range includes the absolute pressure measurements in a portion of the range where the absolute pressure measurements are accurate, and it includes the virtual absolute pressure values in another portion of the range where the differential pressure measurements are accurate.

Integrated absolute and differential pressure transducer

Multiple heater control system with expandable modular functionality

A small scale, but effective, reactive chemical containment system includes apparatus and methods for reaction of process gases exhausted from reaction furnaces with a reactant gas in a non-combustible manner to produce and contain particulate or powder byproducts, thereby removing the process gas from the exhaust gas flow. The apparatus provides process gas inlet, treatment reactive gas diffusion, process gas and treatment reactive gas pre-mixing, primary containment, secondary containment, and outlet zones.

Reactive chemical containment system

In a deposition system, such as a TiN deposition system where TiCland NHare reacted in a process chamber to produce TiN thin film coatings, a second reactor is included between the process chamber and the vacuum pump to react enough of the theretofore unreacted feed gases to consume substantially all of at least one of them so that further reactions that could otherwise produce solids, which cause excessive vacuum pump wear, are presented. The second reactor is preferably positioned between a cooled condensation trap downstream from the process chamber and vacuum pump, and it is also applicable in atomic layer deposition (ALD) systems for TiN, WN, and other materials as well as in chemical vapor deposition (CVD) systems for those and other materials.

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A pirani absolute pressure sensor for sensing absolute pressure in a load lock in a range from 100 to 10torr and a differential pressure sensor for sensing a pressure difference between ambient atmospheric pressure and pressure in the load lock chamber are combined together in a module with a manifold and common circuit components to provide a pressure transducer that is capable of producing not only analog output for absolute pressure measurements, but also control signals at settable absolute and differential pressure values for opening interior and exterior doors of a load lock used to shuttle wafers and other devices into and out of a vacuum processing chamber. The transducer can also produce signals to control transition from slow to fast vacuum pumping of the load lock chamber at a settable threshold pressure.

Method of using a combination differential and absolute pressure transducer for controlling a load lock

A method and apparatus integrates differential pressure measurements and absolute pressure measurements to provide virtual absolute pressure measurements over a wide range of pressures on a single integrated scale.

The present invention provides a vapor delivery system and method for efficiently producing water vapor on demand. More particularly, the present invention produces low-temperature water vapor, without the formation of ice, by maintaining a sufficient volume of water at a sufficient temperature within a vaporizer chamber when the pressure in the vaporizer chamber is lowered.

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Superior, CO, United States of America

Youfan Gu