Apparatus for substrate bevel and backside protection

Abstract

The present invention provides an apparatus for substrate bevel and backside protection. The apparatus includes a vacuum chuck (103), a protecting apparatus, a gas supplying apparatus (114), a spin actuator (115) and a vertical actuator (113). The vacuum chuck (103) holds and positions a substrate. The protecting apparatus has s base portion and a supporting portion (104). The supporting portion (104) is set close to the substrate (101). The supporting portion (104) has a plurality of injecting ports (107) for delivering gas to the gap (105) and a plurality of releasing ports (108) for releasing the gas out of the gap (105). The base portion has a plurality of gas lines (111) and each gas line (111) is connected to one injecting port (107). The gas supplying apparatus (114) supplies the gas to the gas lines (111) of the protecting apparatus. The plurality of injecting ports (107) delivers the gas to the gap (105) for forming a positive gas pressure in the gap (105), and the gas in the gap (105) serves as a gas curtain to protect the bevel and back-side of the substrate(101). The spin actuator (115) drives the vacuum chuck (103) and the protecting apparatus to rotate. The vertical actuator (113) drives the vacuum chuck (103) to move vertically.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.