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| Double floor |
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| Unitized serving base with imperforate pellet |
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| Flameless heater and method of making same |
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Load-lock with external staging area
| Details |
Inventors: Fairbairn, Kevin; Grunes, Howard E.; Lane, Christopher; Colborne, Kelly A.;
Assignee: Applied Materials, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA)
Primary Examiner: Walberg; Teresa
Assistant Examiner: Fuqua; Shawntina T
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Moser, Patterson & Sheridan
The present invention generally provides a vacuum system having a small-volume load-lock chamber for supporting a substrate set of only two rows of substrates, which provides for quick evacuation and venting of the load-lock chamber to provide a continuous feed load-lock chamber. More particularly, the present invention provides a transfer chamber; one or more processing chambers connected to the transfer chamber; a substrate handling robot disposed in the transfer chamber; and at least one load-lock chamber connected to the transfer chamber, and having one or more substrate support members for supporting one or more stacks of only two substrates per stack. Another aspect of the invention provides a staging, or storage rack associated with or integrated with the load-lock chamber. More particularly, the staging, or storage rack may be located outside the transfer chamber and accessible by a staging robot serving the load-lock chamber. The staging or storage rack may temporarily store processed substrates for cooling of the substrates prior to replacing the substrates within substrate cassettes during idle time of the staging robot. In this way, the substrates may continue to be cooled without interrupting the operation of the load-lock chamber. |
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention generally provides a vacuum apparatus for processing substrates, comprising a transfer chamber; one or more processing chambers in communication with the transfer chamber; a substrate handling robot disposed in the transfer chamber; and at least one load-lock chamber connected to the transfer chamber, with the load-lock chamber having one or more substrate support members for supporting one or more substrates.
The apparatus preferably includes a substrate staging area and may further include a staging robot disposed in the staging area to load substrates into and remove substrates from the load-lock chamber.
In another aspect of the invention, the staging area may include one or more storage racks associated with the load-lock chamber for receiving and temporarily storing substrates.
Further, the storage racks, preferably include at least a cooling element and are adapted to temporarily receive and cool substrates retrieved from the load-lock chamber following processing.
In another aspect of the invention, at least one of the storage racks may include a heating element adapted to pre-heat unprocessed substrates retrieved from the substrate cassette prior to processing.
Further, the storage racks may include a cooling element and/or a heating element, each adapted to receive and process a substrate prior to transfer.
Still further, the load-lock chamber may include a heating element disposed in connection therewith for pre-heating unprocessed substrates in the load-lock chamber, and the load-lock chamber may include a substrate support member for receiving a substrate thereon.
In another aspect of the invention, the load-lock chamber may include a substrate support member for receiving a single stack of two or more substrates thereon, preferably in a single load-lock chamber connected to a single facet of the transfer chamber.
Further, each load-lock chamber may include a dual substrate support member for receiving two stacks of two substrates thereon
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Heat Accumulators 
