Patent ID: 6952889

Claim:
An apparatus for heating a wafer during processing, the apparatus comprising: a process chamber; a processing tube defining a processing area disposed in said process chamber, said processing tube having a first wall and a second wall defining a hollow cavity therebetween, said second wall including a plurality of holes formed thereon which allow environmental communication between said hollow cavity and said processing area, wherein said wafer is disposed between opposing second walls, said holes configured such that a centerline of each of said plurality of holes aligns perpendicularly and incident to both a front side and a back side of a wafer disposed in said processing area; and a plurality of resistive heating elements positioned adjacent to said processing tube, a thermal energy output from said resistive heating elements configured to heat a gas flowing through said hollow cavity, said gas flowing through said hollow cavity exits said hollow cavity through said plurality of holes to convectively change the temperature of said wafer disposed in said processing area.