On the lithography floor, a soft bake that drifts even a degree throws photoresist thickness off-spec. Hard bake non-uniformity? That’s an invitation to pattern collapse. The heating lamps on a wafer track aren’t just parts—they’re the thermal anchor that keeps the process honest, shift after shift.
What matters under the hood
We built this lamp around short-wave infrared (SWIR) halogen emitters in a quartz envelope. The point is direct energy coupling into the photoresist, without heating the chamber. You get wafer-level thermal uniformity within ±0.1°C across the bake surface, and setpoint stability that holds up under 24/7 fab cadence. Output stays repeatable from 100°C to 250°C, with sub-second recovery after wafer load—so your thermal budget stays tight. The package is cleanroom-compatible for Class 1–100, verified at zero particle generation by in-situ monitoring, and it drops into the footprint and interface conventions of the major wafer track platforms.
Why it holds up in production
On a wafer track, you need the bake profile to stay consistent across lots, across shifts, and even as the lamp ages. This lamp does that. The result is fewer CD and thickness excursions, less scrap, and qualification cycles that don’t drag on. You also save energy because SWIR heats the resist directly instead of warming the whole module. And with long emitter life, you’re not chasing preventive maintenance windows as often. It’s a verified, equivalent alternative to the original equipment heating sources, aligned with international semiconductor equipment standards for performance and reliability.
What to watch on install
SWIR intensity is high, so optical alignment and shielding have to be done clean during install—otherwise you risk hot spots and you can damage nearby polymers. The lamp works with standard voltage and connector configurations, but it still needs a stable thermal anchor and proper exhaust routing to keep cleanroom particle counts where they should be. Plan on a short ramp-up to reach thermal equilibrium after a lamp swap, then re-qualify the bake profile before you release the line.