Heater assembly for thermal processing of a semiconductor wafer in a vacuum chamber

Claim 1

Apparatus for thermal processing of a semiconductor wafer comprising: a processing chamber; means for controlling the pressure in said processing chamber; wafer handling means for introducing and removing said semiconductor wafer from said processing chamber; and a heater assembly positioned in said processing chamber and adapted for rotation between a wafer-receiving position in which said wafer is received from said wafer handling means and a wafer-ejecting position in which said wafer is ejected to said wafer handling means, said heater assembly comprising: a housing including a slot for slidably receiving and ejecting said wafer and heat sink means for removal of thermal energy, a blackbody source having a constant planar energy flux characteristic; wafer support means in alignment with said slot for slidably receiving said wafer from said wafer handling means and including means for guiding said wafer to a processing position adjacent to but spaced apart from said source in substantially parallel planar alignment therewith, and radiation shield means positioned within said housing on opposite sides of a heater subassembly including said source and said wafer support means, said housing substantially enclosing and supporting said source, said wafer support means and said radiation shields means in fixed relative positions whereby said heater assembly prevents substantial radiation of thermal energy into said processing chamber and provides a mechanically stable relationship between said source and said wafer.