The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 19, 2001
Filed:
May. 22, 1996
Homayoun Talieh, San Jose, CA (US);
Alex Lurye, Fremont, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A coater having a controllable pressurized process chamber for applying photoresist to a wafer is provided. The controllable pressurized process chamber reduces the evaporation of solvent in the photoresist during a spin-on process step. Reducing premature curing of the photoresist results in improved uniform planarization of the photoresist layer. Contaminants in the photoresist are also reduced by having an environmentally controllable process chamber. A housing having a upper and lower section forms a process chamber surrounding a wafer chuck. The upper housing section includes a solvent vapor opening for introducing pressurized solvent vapor into the process chamber and the lower housing section includes an exhaust opening. The upper housing section also includes an opening for introducing photoresist onto a wafer. A control device is coupled to the exhaust opening and a vacuum device for controlling the pressure in the process chamber. A sealed recycling photoresist container and recycling apparatus is also coupled to the exhaust opening to store unused photoresist. The unused photoresist may be used in subsequent spin-on process steps, thereby reducing processing costs.