An apparatus used to control a workpiece inside a vacuum chamber. The workpiece is supported on a workpiece holder in the vacuum chamber. The workpiece is isolated from the atmosphere outside of the vacuum chamber by differentially pumped vacuum seals and an integral air bearing support. The differentially pumped vacuum seals and integral air bearing support allow for multiple independent motions to be transmitted to the workpiece supported by the workpiece holder. The workpiece holder motions provided are (1) rotation about the X axis, (2) translation back and forth along the Y direction of an X-Y plane on the surface of the workpiece holder, and (3) rotation of the workpiece in the X-Y plane about its Z axis. Concentric seals, oval for the translation motion and circular for the rotational motion, are differentially pumped through common ports to provide successively decreasing pressure and gas flow in order to reduce the gas load into the vacuum vessel to a negligible rate.

Method and apparatus for controlling a workpiece in a vacuum chamber

The invention relates to an ion implantation apparatus comprising a vacuum chamber, an ion beam generator generating an ion beam in the vacuum chamber and an implant wheel in the vacuum chamber. The wheel has a plurality of circumferentially distributed wafer support elements. A scanning arm is mounted for reciprocal movement about a scan axis and has a free end supporting the implant wheel for rotation about a wheel axis, so that rotation of the implant wheel about the axis brings the wafer support elements successively to intercept the ion beam and reciprocation of the scanning arm about the scan axis scans the ion beam across the wafer support elements. A motor drives the scanning arm, the motor having a drive shaft connected directly to a cycloid type gearbox, the output of which directly drives the scanning arm.

Ion implantation apparatus

An ion beam generator (10) includes an ion beam source (40) for generating an ion beam (12), an acceleration/deceleration column (44) for selectably accelerating or decelerating ions in the ion beam to desired energies, a source filter (42) positioned between the ion beam source and the acceleration/deceleration column for removing first undesired species from the ion beam, and a mass analyzer (50) positioned downstream of the acceleration/deceleration column for removing second undesired species from the ion beam. The ion beam generator supplies an energetic ion beam having a low level of energy and mass contaminants. The ion beam generator may be utilized in an ion implanter.

Acceleration and analysis architecture for ion implanter

A battery detect circuit (32) is connected to the battery with the current input to the battery and extracted from the battery measured with a sense resistor (50) and then converted to charge and discharge pulses with a V/F converter (52) A microcontroller (64) is operable to increment a Nominal Available Charge (NAC) register (180) during a charge operation, and to increment a Discharge Count Register (DCR) (184) during a discharge operation The NAC register (180) indicates the available charge, which value is output to a display (34) The maximum value to which the NAC value can rise is limited by a value stored in the last measured discharge register (182) This value represents the value stored in the DCR (184) whenever the battery is discharged from an apparent full state to a fully discharged state This results in a qualified transfer to the LMD register (182) such that no knowledge of the actual battery charge is necessary The charge rate is varied as both a function of temperature, voltage and also of the state of charge A fast charge rate is initiated when the charge state is above a predetermined low voltage threshold and less than full When the charge state reaches a level within approximately 80% of full charge, the charge rate is reduced At full capacity, the charge rate is further reduced to a top off charge rate which continues for approximately two hours If the temperature falls below a predetermined low temperature threshold, the charge rate is again reduced to a safe, slow, effective rate Trickle charge is provided to replenish charge adaptively in accordance with a self-discharge counter The trickle charge operates to momentarily pulse the battery (10) at a predetermined charge rate

Method and apparatus for monitoring batttery capacity with charge control

Apparatus for irradiating a substrate is compact, transportable, rugged, high powered, and highly efficient. It includes an improved high voltage inductor (1-230), an improved power transfer apparatus (230-294), an improved voltage multiplication apparatus (500-575), an improved auxiliary power supply (600-619) for the voltage multiplication apparatus, improved accessibility self-shielding (700), and improved methods for radiation processing of solid or liquid materials.

Apparatus comprising inductive and/or power transfer and/or voltage multiplication components

A mechanical scanning system for a batch ion implanter includes a disk (40) for mounting wafers (39) at sites (42) near its periphery and a disk drive assembly (50) for rotating the disk (40). The disk (40) and the disk drive assembly (50) are supported in an end station vacuum chamber (30) by a scan arm (44) which extends through a sealed opening (64) in an access door (60). A scan drive assembly (52) attached to the access door (60) scans the scan arm (44) and the disk (40) in an arc-shaped path. Simultaneous rotation and scanning of the disk cause the ion beam (20) to be distributed over the surfaces of the wafers (39) mounted on the disk (40). A pivot drive assembly (54) rotates the scan arm (44) and the disk (40) about a pivot axis (C) between an implant position and a load/unload position. A bellows (102) seals the scan arm (44) to the vacuum chamber (30) while transmitting arc-shaped movement into the vacuum chamber (30). A bellows guide apparatus guides an intermediate portion of the bellows so as to limit lateral distortion caused by pressure differences applied to the bellows in the combination with asymmetrical deflection thereof.

Avrum Freytsis

Papers

Disk scanning apparatus for batch ion implanters