Equipment front end module for transferring wafers and method of transferring wafers

An equipment front end module (EFEM) useful for transferring semiconductor wafers to and from processing modules comprising:

• an enclosure adapted to have a controlled environment therein wherein the enclosure is bounded by a front wall, a back wall, first and second side walls between the front wall and the back wall, a top wall, and a bottom wall;
• the first side wall, the second side wall, the top wall, or the bottom wall including two or more wafer load ports wherein each wafer load port is adapted to receive a front opening unified pod (FOUP) from a wafer transfer system configured to transfer a FOUP to a respective wafer load port;
• the front wall including a first front wall wafer port and a second front wall wafer port, the first and second front wall wafer ports configured to attach to respective first and second front wall load locks operable to allow a wafer to be transferred from the controlled environment of the EFEM to a vacuum environment of a front wall cluster processing tool or from the vacuum environment of the front wall cluster processing tool to the controlled environment of the EFEM;
• the first side wall including at least two first side wall wafer ports and the second side wall including at least two second side wall wafer ports, the at least two first side wall wafer ports and the at least two second side wall wafer ports each configured to attach to a respective semiconductor wafer processing module;
• and
• at least one robot in the enclosure of the EFEM operable to transfer wafers through the wafer load ports, the first front wall wafer port, the second front wall wafer port, the at least two first side wall wafer ports, and the at least two second side wall wafer ports.