US 2026/0215203 A1Published application

Systems and methods for porous tool

AssigneeIQE plc

InventorRodney PELZEL

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Abstract

A porous tool for porosifying a wafer includes an electrolytic cell a housing, a voltage source, and a controller The electrolytic cell includes a cathode an anode, and an electrolyte A diameter of the wafer is at least 200 mm. The housing encloses the electrolytic cell and is configured to receive the wafer for a porosification process. The housing includes a seal, an input line and an output line The controller is coupled to the housing and the voltage source. The controller is configured to control the porosification process of the wafer. Advantageously the porous tool can provide dry-in and dry-out full-scale (e.g., at least 200 mm diameter) wafer porosification, programmable wafer porosification, a closed cleanroom compatible processing environment, epitaxy and CMOS compatible processing, and automated large volume cassette-to-cassette processing.

Claims16

Dependent claims

A porous tool system comprising:

a porous tool for porosifying a wafer the porous tool comprising:
an electrolytic cell comprising a cathode, an anode, and an electrolyte the wafer configured to be between the cathode and the anode;
a housing enclosing the electrolytic cell and configured to receive the wafer for a porosification process, the housing comprising a seal, an input line, and an output line;
and
a voltage source coupled to the cathode and the anode;
a wafer handling system configured to load and unload the wafer to and from the porous tool;
and
a controller coupled to the porous tool and the wafer handling system, the controller configured to control the porosification process of the wafer;
and
wherein the porous tool system is configured to:
load the wafer within the housing via the wafer handling system;
seal the wafer to the housing via the seal;
fill the housing with an electrolyte solution via the input line;
perform the porosification process of the wafer;
drain the housing of the electrolyte solution via the output line;
dry the wafer within the housing;
and
unload the wafer via the wafer handling system after porosification.

15 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.