Patent ID: 6964276

Claim:
A wafer monitoring system comprising: a gripper operative to fixedly hold a wafer; a bottom buffering unit comprising at least one supporting element adapted to support a wafer; a top buffering unit comprising at least two supporting elements adapted to support a wafer; a first actuator operative to effect relative movement between at least two supporting elements of said top buffering unit; monitoring apparatus operative to perform processing steps on a wafer while the wafer is held fixed to said gripper; and an actuator operative to effect relative movement along a Z-axis between said gripper and said top and bottom buffering units, said top and bottom buffering units being operative to buffer processed and unprocessed wafers thereby to enable a robot to arrive at and leave said monitoring apparatus with at least one wafer thereon, wherein said supporting clement of the bottom buffering unit comprises at least three support sub-elements comprising a pin having a top inclined portion, a substantially vertical portion and a substantially horizontal portion.