Hercules Lithography Track

The EV Group Hercules is a lithography track system. The manufacturer of the system is EV Group. The equipment category of the Hercules is lithography.^[1][2]

A lithography track consists of process modules arranged around a central wafer-handling robot. The robot moves wafers from input cassettes through stations for resist dispensing, spin coating, baking, cooling, and developing. The control system sets spin speeds, dispense volumes, bake temperatures, and process timings for each wafer. Coating modules apply a uniform photoresist film by dispensing liquid resist onto the wafer while the wafer rotates. Thermal modules perform soft-bakes before exposure and post-exposure bakes after exposure. Develop modules apply developer chemistry to wafer surfaces and then rinse and dry the wafers. Some tracks integrate edge bead removal and backside rinse functions.

Many lithography tracks are designed as cluster tools for direct coupling to an exposure system. In such a line, the track handles all resist-related steps and the exposure tool performs only the optical patterning step. Tracks can also operate standalone, with wafers manually loaded and unloaded.

Lithography tracks occupy the coating and developing portions of the photolithography process flow. Wafers receive photoresist, soft bake, and cool-down in the track before alignment and exposure. After exposure, the same track performs the post-exposure bake and development. The resist pattern produced by these steps acts as the mask for subsequent etching, implantation, or deposition.

The track is the part of the lithography cell that handles wet chemical processing, while the exposure tool performs the optical patterning. Depending on the fabrication line, a track can be shared by one exposure tool or support multiple process recipes on the same wafer type. The track determines uniformity, process repeatability, and lot handling around the exposure step.

Application areas for lithography tracks include semiconductor front-end processing, microelectromechanical systems, photonics, and advanced packaging. Track systems process wafer substrates for any patterned process that requires photoresist. The same platform can be configured for positive or negative resist, thick resist films for microstructures, or specialty coatings.

Tracks are found in cleanroom wafer fabs and in research and development facilities that need repeatable resist processing. Systems of this class handle standard round semiconductor substrates in batches. Resist processing in a track supports pattern definitions for device features, interconnect levels, sensors, or fluidic channels.