Patent ID: 8198605

Claim:
An apparatus for performing non-contact material characterization on substrates, comprising: (a) an epitaxial growth apparatus having one or more processing chambers, a first one of the processing chambers being adapted to deposit a material on at least one substrate held on a wafer carrier, said epitaxial growth apparatus having an ancillary chamber in communication with said one or more processing chambers and configured to receive said wafer carrier, said ancillary chamber being a load lock or being a transfer chamber in communication with a plurality of said processing chambers; (b) a non-contact material characterization device, said non-contact material characterization device being constructed and arranged to perform a non-contact material characterization technique on the material deposited on the at least one substrate held on said wafer carrier while said wafer carrier is disposed in said ancillary chamber; and (c) a controller connected to said non-contact material characterization device and connected to at least one of said processing chambers, said controller being constructed and arranged to gather data from said non-contact material characterization device and adjust processing conditions in said at least one of said processing chambers based on the data gathered.