Appeal No. 1999-2335
Application No. 08/449,809
“radiantly heated . . . uniformly from both sides, which
provides for rapid and uniform heating” (column 5, lines 49-
51).
Yamabe discloses a system in which a plurality of
substrates are positioned on support shelves and then are
loaded into a heating chamber in a batch, at which point the
chamber is heated until the substrates reach the proper
processing temperature. The Yamabe shelves have open centers
and support the substrates only at their outer peripheries,
which allows the faces of the substrates directly opposite one
another to be in open relationship. A relatively large heat-
absorbing mass is configured into the peripheral portion of
each shelf. In operation, as the chamber is brought up to the
desired temperature by the heaters in the chamber walls, heat
is radiated inwardly toward the surfaces of the substrates.
If left unchecked, the tendency would be for the peripheral
portion of each substrate to absorb more heat than the central
portion, as is illustrated in Figure 5, resulting in uneven
heating of the substrate. The mass of material on the
peripheries of the shelves counteracts this tendency by
absorbing some of that heat. See column 3, line 67 et seq.;
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007