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:
Sep. 21, 2010
Filed:
Sep. 20, 2004
Bruce Whitefield, Camas, WA (US);
Bruce Whitefield, Camas, WA (US);
LSI Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
Incorporation of a sensor, such as an optical or laser based sensor, into a wafer edge processing unit, such as a WEE unit or mechanism. This sensor enables the WEE unit to be referenced to the wafer edge. Specifically, the sensor can be used to place a WEE unit in a fixed but accurate location at the beginning of the wafer edge expose process. Another approach is to have the WEE drive controller actively follow the edge of the wafer as it rotates during the WEE process, which has the advantage of compensating for any wafer centering errors as well as diameter and placement errors. In yet another approach, the edge sensor is used to sense and track the edge of a previous layer WEE pattern. The sensor can also facilitate the measuring of a distance from a wafer edge to a WEE edge feature.