Cleaning and liquid contact with solids – Apparatus – With plural means for supplying or applying different fluids...
Patent
1995-02-21
1996-10-08
Coe, Philip R.
Cleaning and liquid contact with solids
Apparatus
With plural means for supplying or applying different fluids...
134 953, 134153, 134902, B08B 302
Patent
active
055621139
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The technical field of this invention is cleaning apparatus for rinsing and drying carriers used to hold and process semiconductor wafers, substrates, flat panel displays and similar articles requiring extremely low contamination levels.
BACKGROUND ART
The processing of semiconductor wafers and substrates is very sensitive to problems of contamination. This is also true with photomasks, flat panel displays, data disks, and other articles relating to the semiconductor industry. These articles require extremely low contamination levels. Even minute contaminants can cause defects to occur in the processing of these low-contamination wafer articles. Accordingly, it is necessary to maintain a high level of cleanliness during all or nearly all stages of production.
Semiconductor wafers, substrates, .photomasks, flat panel displays and other similar low-contamination wafer products are also typically processed in batches. Batch handling may occur throughout the entire production process, or for one or more processing steps or related handling operations. Batch processing of this type almost always utilizes some type of carrier or carriers to hold the thin wafer-like materials being processed.
In the batch processing of semiconductor substrates and wafers, a wafer carrier is used to hold a group of these articles. The wafer carriers can be of various designs and are more specifically referred to as a wafer boat. In many applications the wafer boat is made of a suitable polymeric material, e.g. polypropylene or TEFLON.RTM. fluoropolymer. The sides and sometimes the bottom of the wafer boat have receiving slots formed to receive and positionally restrain the wafers in a spaced array with the faces of the wafers adjacent one another. Typically, the central axes of the wafers are aligned. The wafers are slid into the boat, such as from the side or above and removed by sliding them outwardly. The receiving slots in the wafer boat are shallow so that the wafer is engaged only at the peripheral edges and along a thin marginal band extending inwardly from the periphery.
Wafer carriers can also be provided in the form of a protective case or box in which the wafers are held and enclosed against contamination during travel within the processing facility. Wafer carriers of this type are frequently designed to hold a wafer boat having a complementary design. The complementary relationship of the protective wafer carrier box and the wafer carrier boat allow the boat and supported wafers to be fully enclosed and positionally restrained in all directions during transport.
The manufacture of wafer carriers also includes their cleaning. Cleaning of wafer carrying boxes and wafer carrying boats is difficult because they typically have features which include slots, grooves or apertures which are difficult to fully clean. This is greatly exacerbated by the extremely low contamination levels which can be accepted for articles used directly or indirectly in processing of the wafer articles. Dust, metal particles, oils and other organic chemicals may be present on the surfaces of the molds or other production tools used to make wafer carriers. Fully cleaning the wafer carriers to the required extremely low contamination levels is also difficult. Cleaning the wafer carriers for use in semiconductor processing is a task which in some cases is almost as difficult as mechanically forming the article.
The cleaning of wafer carriers has until this invention remained a difficult and relatively costly procedure. The current invention has several advantages and benefits which are explained or otherwise indicated herein.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
One or more preferred forms of the invention are described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings. The drawings are briefly described below.
FIG. 1 is a front elevational view of a preferred embodiment of cleaning apparatus according to the current invention.
FIG. 2 is a rear elevation view of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 3 is a left side elevational view
REFERENCES:
patent: Re28135 (1974-08-01), Hull
patent: 193222 (1877-07-01), Buell
patent: 910882 (1909-01-01), Truesdell
patent: 1405243 (1922-01-01), Wing
patent: 2721566 (1955-10-01), Brucker
patent: 3242934 (1966-03-01), Heinicke et al.
patent: 3443567 (1969-05-01), Moore
patent: 3526237 (1970-09-01), Neill, Jr.
patent: 3608567 (1971-09-01), Neill, Jr.
patent: 3727620 (1973-04-01), Orr
patent: 3769992 (1973-11-01), Wallestad
patent: 3853622 (1974-12-01), Rutten
patent: 3990462 (1976-11-01), Elftmann et al.
patent: 4077416 (1978-03-01), Johnson, Jr. et al.
patent: 4132567 (1979-01-01), Blackwood
patent: 4197000 (1980-04-01), Blackwood
patent: 4208760 (1980-06-01), Dexter et al.
patent: 4370992 (1983-02-01), Choudhury et al.
patent: 4456022 (1984-06-01), Roberts
patent: 4694527 (1987-09-01), Yoshizawa
patent: 4745422 (1988-05-01), Matsuoka et al.
patent: 4750505 (1988-06-01), Inuta et al.
patent: 4788994 (1988-12-01), Shinbara
patent: 4871417 (1989-10-01), Nishizawa et al.
patent: 4903717 (1990-02-01), Sumnitsch
patent: 4941489 (1990-07-01), Kamimura et al.
patent: 4982215 (1991-01-01), Matsuoka
patent: 4982753 (1991-01-01), Grebinski, Jr. et al.
patent: 5000208 (1991-03-01), Ludwig et al.
patent: 5022419 (1991-06-01), Thompson et al.
patent: 5027841 (1991-07-01), Breunsbach et al.
patent: 5038809 (1991-08-01), Rodgers et al.
patent: 5069236 (1991-12-01), Pierson
patent: 5361449 (1994-11-01), Akimoto
Takeshi Hattori et al.; Microcontamination, vol. 9, No. 12; Introducing a New PFA Wafer-Carrier Cleaning Technology; Dec. 1991; pp. 17-21.
Owczarz Aleksander
Thompson Raymon F.
Coe Philip R.
Semitool Inc.
LandOfFree
Centrifugal wafer carrier cleaning apparatus does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Centrifugal wafer carrier cleaning apparatus, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Centrifugal wafer carrier cleaning apparatus will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-51128