Apparatus and method for polishing semiconductor wafers using one or more polishing surfaces
AssigneeKoMiCo Technology, Inc.
InventorIn Jeong
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus and method for polishing objects, such as semiconductor wafers, utilizes one or more polishing surfaces, multiple wafer carriers and at least one load-and-unload cup. The load-and-unload cup may be configured to move to and from the wafer carriers in a pivoting manner. The load-and-unload cup may be configured to move to and from the wafer carriers in a linear reciprocating manner. The wafer carriers may be configured to move to and from the load-and-unload cup in a pivoting manner. The wafer carriers may be configured to move to and from the load-and-unload cup in a linear reciprocating manner.
Claims23
An apparatus for polishing objects, said apparatus comprising:
- an object polishing station having an input region to receive said objects and an output region to output said objects, said object polishing station including:
- a plurality of polishing surfaces;
- an object transfer station positioned between two adjacent polishing surfaces of said polishing surfaces;
- a plurality of object carriers, each of said object carriers being configured to secure one of said objects;
- and
- at least one drive mechanism operatively connected to at least one of said object carriers, said drive mechanism being configured to displace at least one of said object carriers to and from said object transfer station and one of said two adjacent polishing surfaces;
- and
- at least one object transport device to transfer said objects to said input region of said object polishing station and to transfer said objects from said output region of said object polishing station,
- wherein each of said objects is transferred from said input region to said output region by way of at least one of said polishing surfaces of said object polishing station such that each of said objects is polished on at least one of said polishing surfaces.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.