Process chamber sleeve with ring seals for isolating individual process modules in a common cluster

A modular wafer processing system, comprising:

• a wafer handling chamber with a planar lid that provides for the containment of a vacuum;
• a plurality of processing ports distributed around said planar lid with mating seats on an outside surface that provide for interchangeability;
• a plurality of process reactors that provide for independent types of semiconductor process functions and that each can mount at any one of said mating seats in individual ones of the plurality of processing ports;
• means for shuttling wafers for processing to points beneath individual ones of the plurality of processing ports and accessible to the output of each of the plurality of process reactors in the wafer handling chamber, wherein said wafers are generally shuttled parallel to the plane of said planar lid simultaneously;
• a plurality of cylindrical metal sleeves each with top and bottom end ring seals and extendible between the wafer handling chamber and corresponding ones of the plurality of processing ports, and providing for the isolation of eachprocess reactor from another;
• an anteroom chamber connected to one side of the wafer handling chamber and including a double-axis wafer transfer arm for linearly transferring a plurality of semiconductor wafers through the anteroom chamber;
• and
• an elevator chamber accessible to said double-axis wafer transfer arm and that accepts a cassette loaded with a plurality of said semiconductor wafers through a removable door and including an elevator platform on which said cassettes ride up and down, and an elevator drive to automatically position said elevator platform.