[labnetwork] An R&D FOUP

[Carlos Gramajo]

Hi Chris,

Why not put it in a vacuum box? Desicators can also be put under vacuum.

Cheers,

Carlos Gramajo
Cleanroom Research Scientist
Shared Equipment Authority (SEA), Rice University
Cell: 713-470-8115; Office: 713-348-8243; cg70 at rice.edu

On Tue, May 20, 2025, 7:03 PM Tony Whipple <whipp003 at umn.edu> wrote:

> Hello Chris;
>
> Before the FOUP there was the SMIF system for six inch wafers.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMIF_(interface)
> I have not seen either of these with a vacuum option before.
>
> Regards, Tony W.
>
>
> On Tue, May 20, 2025 at 3:05 PM Christopher Raum <crraum at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I work between two fabs at UC Berkeley and part of my process flow
>> involves shuttling wafers between those two fabs to their respective tools.
>>
>> Currently I use a wafer box and double bag to ensure the wafers aren't
>> contaminated by the environment outside the two fab labs. This is generally
>> standard practice for transporting wafers outside a cleanroom.
>>
>> But there are more complicated concerns. For example one fab lab has a
>> wetbench used to remove native oxide from wafers, and when the next tool in
>> the flow is in the same fab, I can minimize the regrowth of native oxide -
>> but when I need to transfer between fabs regrowth can become an issue.
>>
>> In industry they use a FOUP (Front Opening Unified Pod) to move wafers
>> around while controlling the environment the wafers sees. The pods can be
>> purged with nitrogen (and perhaps placed under vacuum?) and I think they
>> can also be light tight to allow PR coated wafers to be transported in
>> unfiltered light.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOUP
>>
>> Since it's the industry that uses FOUPs, all the systems are for 12" and
>> above wafers. I know I could never be so lucky, but I'll ask anyway - does
>> anyone know of any FOUP systems that are fitted for six inch wafers?
>>
>> Outside that possibility, my ask for the community is: Is there an
>> interest in developing such a system? Some sort of crowdsourcing? There are
>> many members of industry in this mailing list and I'm sure there would be
>> quite a few academic and research customers if someone wanted to develop
>> and fabricate such a wafer transportation system.
>>
>> I hope this post stimulates some interesting discussion.
>>
>> -Chris
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