Disclosed is a rotation/revolution type vapor phase growth apparatus that allows for automatic meshing between an external gear and an internal gear. In the apparatus, on tooth side surfaces of at least one kind of a plurality of external gear members provided rotatably in a circumferential direction of an outer periphery of a disk-shaped susceptor and a ring-shaped fixed internal gear member having an internal gear to mesh with the external gear members, there is provided a guide slope that abuts against a tooth side surface of the other kind of the gear member(s) to guide both kinds of the gear members into a meshed state when both kinds of the gear members move from a non-meshed state to the meshed state.

The fastening elements 71 are first set through the rotary disk 1 to be then fixed to the retention plates 2 so that the stretching force induced by the fixing operation is acting upon the retention plates 2. This helps prevent the rotary disk 1 from being affected by the stretching force and thus deformed. Further, the fastening holes 22 are located adjacent to the retention grooves 21 so that they can directly and effectively apply forces to the support members 3 and due to the torque (distance) thereof with respect to the support members 3 being reduced, it is possible to effectively reduce the occurrence of deformation of the retention plates 2. To summarize, since the stretching force induced by fixing is born by the retention plates 2, the rotary disk 1 may have a lifespan that is greater than that of the retention plates 2 and with the arrangement that releasable engagement is formed between the retention plates 2 and the rotary disk 1, it only needs to replace an individual one of the retention plates 2 that has been deformed in the maintenance thereof. Further, due to the size of the retention plates 2 being reduced, the cost of maintenance can be greatly lowered down.

The present invention is a holding pad including a holding layer for holding a member to be polished, in which the holding layer includes on a part of a surface thereof a template fixing portion for sticking a template for preventing lateral displacement of the member to be polished, the template fixing portion has on a surface thereof an adsorption layer for adsorbing and fixing the template the template fixing portion, and the adsorption layer is formed of a composition which is formed by crosslinking a silicone composed of a predetermined siloxane.

A wafer processor has a rotor holding wafers within a process tank. The rotor rotates sequentially moving the wafers through a process liquid held in the process tank. The tank may have an I-beam shape to reduce the volume of process liquid. A load port is provided at a top of the process tank for loading and unloading wafers into and out of the process tank. Rinsing and cleaning chambers may be associated with the load port to remove process liquid from processed wafers. The processor may be oriented with the rotor rotating about a horizontal axis or about a vertical axis.

A wafer carrier for processing a plurality of wafers includes a carrier body which rotatable about a central axis, and a plurality of pockets formed in the carrier body. Each of the pockets has an access opening and an inner periphery surface extending from the access opening to terminate at a floor surface. A lower periphery region of the inner periphery surface has a most distal region which is most distal from the central axis. When the carrier body is rotated about the central axis, a corresponding one of the wafers is less likely to be damaged due to a centrifugal force applied to the corresponding one of the wafers.

An arrangement of two shutters radially outward from an injector block and a susceptor onto which a wafer carrier is removably mounted are configured to provide a flowpath through a reactor chamber that does not exhibit a vortex, thereby reducing or eliminating buildup on the inside of the reactor chamber and facilitating large temperature gradient between the injector block and the wafer carrier. This can be accomplished by introduction of a purge gas flow at a radially inner wall of an upper shutter, and in some embodiments the purge gas can have a different chemical composition than the precursor gas used to grow desired epitaxial structures on the wafer carrier.

Work piece carrier device to be installed in a vacuum chamber of a vacuum treatment system, comprising: one carousel X with a diameter d.sub.X, one or multiple carousels Y.sub.m with a diameter d.sub.Ym<d.sub.X, which are mountable on carousel X one or multiple work piece supports Z.sub.n with diameters d.sub.Zn≤d.sub.Ym, which are mountable on the one or multiple carousels Y.sub.m, two actuators A1 and A2.

Disclosed is a graphite plate to solve a problem of poor performance uniformity of an epitaxial wafer obtained during carrying on epitaxial growth of material using the graphite plate. A graphite plate includes: a graphite plate body, includes a carrying recess and a recess located on one side of the carrying recess away from a central point of the graphite plate body; and a stopper, which is embedded in the recess in a matching manner, and the stopper protrudes from the bottom surface of the carrying recess to form a limiting structure.

A substrate processing module includes a transfer chamber, an array of processing stations, at least one shutter disk assembly, and a substrate handling device. The array of processing stations is disposed within a transfer volume, and each of the processing stations within the array are configured to selectively process at least one substrate. The shutter disk assembly includes an actuator and a disk blade configured to support a shutter disk coupled thereto. The shutter disk is rotatable between a first position and a second position. In the first position, the disk blade is disposed between two of the plurality of processing stations. In the second position, the disk blade is located under one of the processing stations within the array. The substrate handling device is disposed centrally within the transfer volume and includes a plurality of arms each configured to support and position a substrate.

A heating apparatus, a method and a system for producing semiconductor chips in a wafer assembly are disclosed. In an embodiment a method for producing semiconductor chips in a wafer composite includes providing a carrier having a wafer plane and a reference point, wherein the carrier is configured to accommodate at least one wafer composite in the wafer plane, providing a heating device comprising a heating plane and a first heating unit arranged laterally offset from the reference point in the heating plane, and arranging the heating device with its heating plane parallel to the wafer plane, arranging at least one wafer composite in the wafer plane of the carrier, rotating the carrier and the heating device relative to each other about an axis perpendicular to the heating plane and the wafer plane through the reference point, controlling the first heating unit such that a temperature of the carrier is influenced, providing a bending sensor for determining a bending characteristic value, the bending characteristic value being representative of a bending of the at least one wafer composite relative to the wafer plane and controlling the first heating unit based on the bending characteristic value.