A novel illuminator design in a rapid thermal processor

The instantaneous insertion of an opaque shutter between the lamp arrays and the wafer in a rapid thermal processor can significantly increase the ramp-down rate from 90 to 400/spl deg/C/s during the cooling period. This shutter can prevent the residual heating of lamp filament as well as the self-heating from the reflector due to the mirror image of the wafer. To compensate for the weak irradiation intensity close to the edge of the linear lamps, a multiplane reflector design is used to increase the uniformity of irradiation intensity in the direction along the linear lamps. The distance between the reflector plane and the linear lamp is designed to be smaller at the edge, as compared to the center, of the linear lamp. Together with two oblique reflectors at the ends of the linear lamps, a typical three-plane reflector design can increase the uniformity by 60% in a typical lamp configuration.