User:Piotr01

'''This page is just a provisional container to create an article about Cluster Tools. It is still under construction - please do not modify or comment yet.'''

Cluster Tool
The term Cluster Tool means “aggregation of tools”.

In the microelectronics manufacturing technology this term describes a modular processing (i.e. manufacturing or production) system consisting of at least one material handling module and one or more processing modules or other type module attached to it. A module can be either a dedicated process module or a special measurement module or a material transfer module. The SEMI, an international US-based organization of microelectronics manufacturers and manufacturing equipment vendors provides formalized descriptions and technical requirements (called SEMI Standards, however not being compulsory or legal regulations) for Cluster Tools used in microelectronics industry and research labs.

For reader not familiar with microelectronics technology a good illustration could be the space technology where the modular concepts is widely used in construction of orbiting space stations like IISS today or MIR or SpaceLab in the past. They all use dedicated laboratory modules, personnel accommodation modules and transfer/storage modules and each of them can be isolated and separated from the space station. The advantage of modular architecture is scalability, exchangeability and interoperability if a minimum level of standardization is achieved. In late 60-ties for example USA and USSR agreed on standardization of docking collar for space vehicles enabling common missions like Sojuz-Apollo or rescue operations. The equivalent of docking in microelectronics Cluster Tool is the standardized MESC rectangular vacuum flange and gate introduced in early 90-ties.

Cluster Tools are widely used in today’s microelectronics and flat displays manufacturing and can be categorized in:

- High Vacuum or Vacuum Cluster Tools

- Atmospheric Cluster Tools

- Radial or Linear C.T.

- Proprietary or Open Architecture (multi-vendor) C.T.

and others whereby such categories can overlap and are not precisely defined. For example a linear cluster tool can be seen as an in-line processing track.

Various types of modules building a Cluster Tool could be:

- atmospheric type Transfer Module (often called EFEM Equipment Front End Module) or

- Vacuum Transfer Modules (vacuum chamber equipped with high speed and high accuracy vacuum robot and called the Transport Module or Transfer Chamber)

- Process Module (for vacuum or atmospheric processes, for single substrate or multiple substrate processing (called batch-type module). The word “processing” has broad meaning here – for example a cooling module performs simple operation of cooling down a substrate after a foregoing hot process. In contrast a heating module can be either a sophisticated contactless heater like an RTP (Rapid Thermal Processing) tool or contain just a simple hot plate.

- Dedicated Module or Special Purpose Module which can be an Integrated Measurement Module or a Bridging Module connecting two Cluster Tools or an Alignment Module performing the precise positioning of a substrate.

The number of processing tools available as cluster module design is vast – almost all companies offering production equipment for microelectronics or flat displays have modular tools available as fully featured Cluster or just dedicated modules. Even if the mechanical integration (the term describing incorporation of a module in a cluster) includes an calculable effort and good engineering skills, the integration of a module control system in cluster control software (software integration) will require SW-expert knowledge especially when the Cluster Tool is composed of modules made by independent vendors employing different control systems or proprietary communication protocols. The standardization of software interfaces of a cluster tool has been initiated by the SEMI/MESC (former MESA) Committee and few implementations was demonstrated in mid 90-ties in USA in Europe and in Korea. The commercialization of inexpensive cluster architecture wasn’t supported by big vendors of manufacturing equipment like Applied Materials, ASMI or TEL protecting their proprietary cluster tools. Another reason for weak response to the idea of the common standardized software interface was the enormous growth of new software technologies between 1990 and 2000 making even the rudimentary regulations obsolete within a year or two.