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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7229343 | Orbiting indexable belt polishing station for chemical mechanical polishing An apparatus for planarizing a workpiece has a web with a face which is positioned adjacent the workpiece during planarization. At least one tension assembly is configured to maintain tension of the web. An orbiting assembly is configured to orbit the web relative t... | 06/12/2007 |
| 7140956 | Work piece carrier with adjustable pressure zones and barriers and a method of planarizing a work piece An apparatus for planarizing a work piece includes an easily assembled work carrier. The carrier includes a carrier insert having a work piece bladder clamped to a carrier backing plate with a plurality of clamps to form a plurality of web plenums. The outer edge of... | 11/28/2006 |
| 7014541 | Work piece carrier with adjustable pressure zones and barriers and a method of planarizing a work piece An apparatus for planarizing a work piece includes an easily assembled work carrier. The carrier includes a carrier insert having a work piece bladder clamped to a carrier backing plate with a plurality of clamps to form a plurality of web plenums. The outer edge of... | 03/21/2006 |
| 6852007 | Robotic method of transferring workpieces to and from workstations An integral machine for polishing, cleaning, rinsing and drying workpieces such as semiconductor wafers. A load/unload station has a plurality of platforms for receiving cassettes of wafers to be processed. A dry end-effector of a robot retrieves wafers from the cas... | 02/08/2005 |
| 6802955 | Method and apparatus for the electrochemical deposition and planarization of a material on a workpiece surface An electrochemical apparatus is provided which deposits material onto or removes material from the surface of a workpiece. The apparatus comprises a polishing pad and a platen which is in turn comprised of a first conductive layer in contact with the polishing pad a... | 10/12/2004 |
| 6758939 | Laminated wear ring A laminated wear ring for a chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) apparatus provides improved control of the removal rate of material from the edge of a wafer during a polishing/planarization operation. The laminated wear ring includes a high stiffness stainless s... | 07/06/2004 |
| 6567725 | Method and apparatus for teaching robot station location Apparatus for teaching robot station location relative to a work piece apparatus includes an attachment that can be temporarily coupled to the apparatus and positioned in known relationship to the robot station location. A plurality of positional sensors ... | 05/20/2003 |
| 6371838 | Polishing pad conditioning device with cutting elements A method and apparatus for polishing and planarizing workpieces such as semiconductor wafers is presented. Conditioning rings, which are used to condition polishing pads used in the planarization or polishing of semiconductor wafers, are shown which utili... | 04/16/2002 |
| 6356091 | Automatic wafer mapping in a wet environment on a wafer cleaner A wafer mapping method and apparatus for automatically determining the location and orientation of workpieces within a workpiece processing tool. An illumination device is provided which directs light toward the edges of the workpieces and a vision system... | 03/12/2002 |
| 6347982 | Method for making a polishing apparatus utilizing brazed diamond technology and titanium nitride A method and apparatus for polishing and planarizing workpieces such as semiconductor wafers is presented. Conditioning rings, which are used to condition polishing pads used in the planarization or polishing of semiconductor wafers, are shown which utili... | 02/19/2002 |
| 6347981 | Method and apparatus for conditioning polishing pads utilizing brazed diamond technology and titanium nitride A method and apparatus for polishing and planarizing workpieces such as semiconductor wafers is presented. Conditioning rings, which are used to condition polishing pads used in the planarization or polishing of semiconductor wafers, are shown which utili... | 02/19/2002 |
| 6217410 | Apparatus for cleaning workpiece surfaces and monitoring probes during workpiece processing The present invention provides methods and apparatus which permit the in-process, in-situ, substantially real time measurement of the actual thickness of a surface layer of a workpiece, e.g., a semiconductor wafer. A probe is disposed proximate the outer ... | 04/17/2001 |
| 6213844 | Method for obtaining a desired film thickness using chemical mechanical polishing Improved chemical mechanical polishing methods for removing material from a surface of a workpiece are disclosed. The workpiece is polished for a predetermined amount of time, the wafer is then moved to the perimeter of a polishing surface and film thickn... | 04/10/2001 |
| 6113468 | Wafer planarization carrier having floating pad load ring A wafer carrier for polishing or planarizing semiconductor workpieces or wafers includes a pressure plate configured to hold a wafer to be polished or to be planarized against a polishing pad, and is further configured to rotate the wafer during the polis... | 09/05/2000 |
| 5975991 | Method and apparatus for processing workpieces with multiple polishing elements A chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) system includes multiple workpiece processing elements arranged in a vertically staggered configuration. The polishing elements are positioned such that an outer edge of a first polishing element overlaps the inne... | 11/02/1999 |
