Study of optimal load lock dedication for cluster tools

Cluster or chamber tools are often used in the semiconductor industry. In a research environment, moving to smaller device dimensions requires experimentation with new chamber types and materials to overcome challenges with Moore¿s Law. To make the most of expensive mainframes and clean room floor space multiple chamber types can be placed on one mainframe. Although this type of configuration can reduce cost while evaluating new complex processes, the efficiency of the tool as a whole can be drastically reduced. A major bottleneck within tools configured with multiple process chambers can be the load locks. These load locks are the single wafer entry point into the vacuum chamber. This paper will show the effect of load lock dedication on a sample multi-process chamber tool.