Appeal No. 2006-1479
Application No. 10/324,660
1 Appellants’ invention is a system and method for eliminating wafer
2 protrusion in a semiconductor furnace. The system and method utilizes a
3 wafer press coupled to a cylinder for applying force to reposition one or
4 more wafers protruding from one or more cassettes. Independent claim 1 is
5 representative of the claimed invention and reads as follows:
6 11. A method for eliminating wafer protrusion,
7 comprising:
8 placing a plurality of wafers in one or more
9 cassettes, each cassette configured to store a
10 plurality of wafers in a stocker system;
11 placing the cassette on a shelf of the stocker
12 system, the stocker system configured to receive a
13 plurality of cassettes stacked vertically on a
14 plurality of shelves; and
15 activating a wafer press operable to apply a
16 force to the wafers protruding from the one or
17 more cassettes to reposition the wafers in the one
18 or more cassettes, wherein said wafer press is
19 activated by coupling the wafer press to a cylinder;
20 and
21 adjusting the pressure in the cylinder to
22 change the location of the wafer press.
23
24 The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
25 unpatentability:
26 McPhail US 3,554,114 Jan. 12, 1971
27 Iwai US 5,562,383 Oct. 08, 1996
28 Kaneda (as translated) JP 10-242095 Sep. 11, 1998
29 Pavloski US 5,844,683 Dec. 01, 1998
30 Kikuchi US 5,970,818 Oct. 26, 1999
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013