Multi-vane throttle valve
AssigneeFerrotec (USA) Corporation
InventorPheng Sin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A multi-vane throttling valve for a vacuum process chamber includes a throttle chamber body having an inside exposed to the vacuum process chamber and an outside exposed to atmospheric pressure, the chamber body defining a through-opening for controlling vacuum within the vacuum process chamber, a plurality of rotatable vanes mounted within the through-opening for controlling a flow of gases through the through-opening where each rotatable vane includes a cooling flow pathway in fluid communication with and disposed longitudinally along each rotatable vane, and a drive mechanism disposed on and connected to an outside of the throttle chamber body for rotating the plurality of rotatable vanes to vary the flow of process gases.
Claims20
A multi-vane throttling valve for a vacuum process chamber, the valve comprising:
- a throttle chamber body having an inside exposed to the vacuum process chamber and an outside exposed to atmospheric pressure, the chamber body defining a through-opening for controlling vacuum within the vacuum process chamber;
- a plurality of rotatable vanes mounted within the through-opening for controlling a flow of gases through the through-opening wherein each rotatable vane includes a cooling flow pathway in fluid communication with and disposed longitudinally along each rotatable vane;
- and
- a drive mechanism disposed on and connected to an outside of the throttle chamber body for rotating the plurality of rotatable vanes to vary the flow of process gases.
A method of providing a full range of linear conductance control in a vacuum process chamber during a vacuum chamber process using a throttling valve, the method comprising:
- obtaining a multi-vane throttling valve for use with the vacuum process chamber and incorporating a plurality of rotatable vanes disposed in a vane chamber housing of a throttle chamber body;
- configuring each of the plurality of rotatable vanes with a cooling conduit disposed longitudinally along each rotatable vane;
- flowing cooling liquid through the cooling conduit of each rotatable vane;
- and
- rotatably adjusting the orientation of each rotatable vane to thereby provide linear conductance control during vacuum processing in the vacuum process chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.