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. 21, 2012
Filed:
Nov. 05, 2009
Arnold Kholodenko, San Francisco, CA (US);
Gregrory A. Tomasch, Kelseyville, CA (US);
Leonid Ginzburg, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Cheng-yu (Sean) Lin, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Arnold Kholodenko, San Francisco, CA (US);
Gregrory A. Tomasch, Kelseyville, CA (US);
Leonid Ginzburg, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Cheng-Yu (Sean) Lin, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Lam Research Corporation, Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
In an example embodiment, a wet system delivers a flow of cleaning foam through a channel in a proximity head to a meniscus interfacing with a semiconductor wafer. The wet system diverts a sample of the flow from the channel through a transparent cell that is connected to the channel by an input passage that leads from the channel to the transparent cell and by an output passage that leads from the transparent cell back to the channel. The wet system illuminates the sample in the transparent cell with an LED from the top or the back and captures an image of the illuminated sample with a CCD camera. The image shows a morphological attribute of the cleaning foam such as bubble diameter or spacing. The wet system generates a statistical characterization from the morphological attribute and adjusts other attributes of the cleaning foam based on the statistical characterization.