Inverted pressure vessel with horizontal through loading

Abstract

A pressure vessel intended to be used during clean operations and operated at elevated pressure and temperature comprising: an open support frame; an inverted pressure vessel secured to said open support frame; a vertically movable underside a cover plate; means for moving said cover plate between an upward position closed to said inverted pressure vessel and a downward position open to said pressure vessel; a mechanical locking system; a guard for separating said operating environment from said pressure vessel said means for moving said cover plate is isolated from said locking system; and means for applying heat to said pressure vessel.

Description

[0001] This application is related to and claims priority to US Application Serial No. 60 / 147,251, filed August 5, 1999, and US Application Serial No. 60 / 155,454, filed September 25, 1999. technical field [0002] The present invention relates to the use of pressure vessels operating at progressively elevated pressures and temperatures during operations requiring extreme cleanliness and, in particular, to the use in production environments to facilitate easy and clean loading of pressure vessels during automated wafer handling and Closed pressure vessel design and closure mechanism. Background technique [0003] In the semiconductor industry as well as in other industries, there is a general need for a method of operation that can load wafers or other items to be processed and allow the process fluid or substance to be processed to enter or exit after the enclosure is sealed. , and shells or pressure vessels in which pressure and temperature rise and vary within a certain ra...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0016] As far as supercritical fluid processing of wafers and substrates is concerned in pressure vessels, especially in production environments, the current existing technologies do not solve the following technical problems well: processing environment pollution, especially a process with subsequent processing Continuous sources of pollution accumulated periodically; the production speed of traditional pressure vessels is limited during automatic loading and unloading, and the loading path is complicated; there is a lack of fast, simple and safe automatic mechanical locking devices for pressure vessels that support automatic operations; in addition, they can be integrated into The potential for integration of conventional pressure vessels is generally poor in terms of the possibility of a production line that uses robots to move wafers into and out of the vessel

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