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. 13, 2006
Filed:
Nov. 27, 2002
Manny Sieradzki, Gloucester, MA (US);
Nicholas R. White, Manchester, MA (US);
Manny Sieradzki, Gloucester, MA (US);
Nicholas R. White, Manchester, MA (US);
Axcelis Technologies, Inc., Beverly, MA (US);
Abstract
A high-speed wafer-processing apparatus and method that employs a vacuum chamber having at least two wafer transport robots and a process station. The vacuum chamber interfaces with a number of single-wafer load locks that are loaded and unloaded one wafer at a time by a robot in atmosphere. Four load locks are sized to allow for a gentle vacuum cycling of each wafer without significant pumpdown delays. The robots in the vacuum chamber move wafers sequentially from one of the load locks to a process station for processing and then to another one of the load locks for unloading by the atmospheric robot.