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:
Mar. 28, 2017
Filed:
Dec. 28, 2015
Wayne O. Duescher, Roseville, MN (US);
Cameron M. Duescher, Maplewood, MN (US);
Wayne O. Duescher, Roseville, MN (US);
Cameron M. Duescher, Maplewood, MN (US);
Other;
Abstract
Hard-material, flat-surfaced workpieces such as semiconductor wafers or sapphire disks are attached with vacuum to the flexible elastomeric membrane of a rotatable wafer carrier that allows one surface of the workpiece to be in conformal abrading contact with a moving flat-surfaced abrasive. The elastomeric membrane external wafer attachment surface has a pattern of recessed vacuum grooves where vacuum supplied to the grooves firmly attach the rigid-material silicon wafer in flat-surfaced contact with the membrane. The attached wafer seals the vacuum grooves. A flexible thin metal annular membrane support disk is attached to the membrane within an abrading-pressure chamber where attached drive pins engage matching holes in the wafer carrier provide rotational torque to the wafer and restrain it laterally against abrading forces. Wafer polishing pressure is applied uniformly over the wafer surface. The rotating wafer peripheral edge does not contact a rigid retaining ring during a wafer polishing procedure.