Edge gripped substrate loading and unloading method

Abstract

A substrate lift mechanism includes a plurality of fingers mounted on a hoop controlled by an actuator to transfer a substrate, such as a wafer or a flat panel display, from an edge grip arm to a chuck on a processing tool, such as integrated metrology tools. The substrate lift mechanism includes a base that is configured to be mounted to existing processing tools thereby allowing the processing tools to be adapted to be operable with new edge grip arms. The plurality of fingers are positioned to permit an edge grip arm to pass between two of the fingers and are configured to gravitationally support the substrate. Advantageously, the base of the substrate lift mechanism has a small footprint to minimize the space requirements of the processing tool to which it is mounted.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.