Patent ID: 6692219
Filing Date: 2004-02-17
Classification: H01L,Y10S

Abstract:
An improvement kit for a semiconductor wafer handling system of a semiconductor wafer processing machine having (a) a cassette station for supporting a wafer cassette containing vertical stack of a plurality of horizontally disposed wafers, (b) an aligning station for centering a horizontally disposed wafer, (c) a transfer station, (d) a transfer arm for transferring individual wafers among the cassette station, the aligning station and a load arm at the transfer station, (e) a processing apparatus having a plurality of processing stations, including a load-lock station, disposed in a circle in a vertical plane, (f) a load arm for transferring wafers between a horizontal orientation on the transfer arm at the transfer station and a vertical orientation in the processing apparatus at the load lock station, to facilitate transporting semiconductor wafers having devices structure on a device side thereof for backside deposition in a processing station while limiting contact with the device side of the wafer to an exclusion area not more than two millimeters wide adjacent the edge of the wafer, the kit comprising:a transfer arm chuck mountable on the transfer arm; an aligning station chuck mountable at the aligning station; a load arm chuck mountable on the load arm; and each of the transfer arm, aligning station and load arm chucks having: a wafer support surface lying in a plane and formed of segments of an annular ring not more than 2 millimeters wide having a nominal diameter selected from the group consisting of 200 millimeters or 300 millimeters, an outside diameter at least as large as said nominal diameter and an inside diameter less than said nominal diameter; and each of the transfer arm and load arm chucks having: a bevel extending outwardly from the support surface in at least a plurality of angularly spaced sections adjacent the outside diameter of the annular ring on each of the segments thereof, the bevel being positioned to guide the edge of a wafer onto the support surface and to substantially restrict contact between the support surface of the chuck and the wafer to the exclusion area.