The present invention discloses a
station, e.g., for IC fabrication with a flexible configuration. It consists of an array of
processing chambers, which are grouped into
processing modules and arranged in a two-dimensional fashion, in vertical levels and horizontal rows, and is capable of operating independent of each other. Each
processing chamber can perform
electroless deposition and other related processing steps sequentially on a
wafer with more than one processing fluid without having to remove it from the chamber. The
system is served by a single common
industrial robot, which may have a random to access to all the working chambers and cells of the storage unit for transporting wafers between the
wafer cassettes and inlet / outlets ports of any of the chemical processing chambers. The
station occupies a service-room floor space and a clean-room floor space. The processing modules and the main
chemical management unit connected to the local chemical supply unit occupy a service-room floor space, while the
robot and the
wafer storage cassettes are located in a clean room. Thus, in distinction to the known cluster-tool machines, the
station of the invention makes it possible to transfer part of the units from the expensive clean-room area to less-expensive service area.