Inventor’s Corner

Material delivering system

The material delivery system is particularly useful for filtered environments, such as cleanrooms and minienvironments, where such devices as disk drives are made.

In on particular embodiment, the system is set up like a workstations that includes a table (A) that has several apertures where trays (B) are stacked. The system itself (C) is installed underneath the table, and a transfer robot (D) can remove one or more parts from the trays to a turntable, where the operator can assemble certain parts of the device.
Patent number: 6,648,587 B1
Date granted: Nov. 18, 2003
Inventors: Tom E. McMunigal, Michael A. Finn and John C. McCrandall, of Maxtor Corp. (Longmont, Colo.)

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Door system

The door system is geared for handling semiconductor components in a cleanroom, and includes a workpiece cassette holder (A), an cleanroom, an atmospheric robot (B), an upper load lock (C) and a lower load lock (D), a vacuum transport chamber (E) and a process chamber (F).

The system allows workpieces to be transported from the cassette holder to the process chamber with high-throughput ability and very low contamination.

The load locks contain one or more shelves (G) to hold the workpieces, which are transported by paddles (H) that are controlled by the robot. The shelves may be cooled to provide a cooling station after processing. The load locks are sealed on the outside by linear doors. The top linear door (I) allows components to be loaded or unloaded from the upper load lock, while the lower linear door (J) allows workpieces to be loaded and unloaded from the lower load lock.
Patent number: 6,647,665
Date granted: Nov. 18, 2003
Inventors: Farzad Tabrizi, Barry Kitazumi, David A. Setton, Leszek Niewmeirzycki, Michael J. Kuhlman, of Mattson Technology Inc. (Freemont, Calif.)

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Environmental monitoring method

The apparatus uses an infrared transmitter, which adsorbs the substances in the environment to be measured, and causes reflections of particles adhering to it. An ultraviolet light source is then employed to remove the particles adhering to surfaces. A detection optical system detects the transmitting infrared beam, while a spectrometer and a computer calculate concentrations and sizes of substances in the environment. Substances in the environment, such as organic contaminants, that are present in the atmosphere can be identified, or their concentrations can be measured, with high sensitivity and realtime.
Patent number: 6,657,196 B2
Date granted: Dec. 2, 2003
Inventors: Michiaki Endo, Haruo Yoshida, Yasuhiro Maeda

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If you have a patented contamination-control invention, submit a detailed sketch, brief summary, patent number and date granted, plus inventors' name and company to: CleanRooms, Attn.: Mark DeSorbo, 98 Spit Brook Road, Nashua, NH 03062.

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