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:
Aug. 07, 2001
Filed:
Dec. 15, 1997
Michael Rivkin, Mountain View, CA (US);
Ed Kaczorowski, Saratoga, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A vacuum processing system has a load lock chamber for transitioning wafers between an ambient environment pressure and a transfer chamber vacuum pressure. The load lock chamber has wafer supports for two wafers, but contains only one wafer during pressure transitioning. The load lock chamber further has a processing element, so that the load lock chamber performs a pre-processing or post-processing process on the wafer. The processing element may be a wafer heater, so that the load lock chamber may heat the wafer before or after the system performs a primary process on the wafer. The processing element may be a wafer cooler, so that the load lock chamber may cool down a wafer that has been heated before, during or after the primary process. The load lock chamber may have either a wafer heater or a wafer cooler or both.