This paper describes a few design concepts evaluated to mitigate the possibility of dust particle deposition on wafer surface during N2 venting process inside a load lock chamber, used for Semiconductor wafer processing. During the process of N2 venting and vacuum roughing inside a load lock chamber, it was observed that there was a significant deposition of dust particles on the wafer surface. It was required to identify the probable causes for dust particle deposition and propose minimal design modifications to mitigate this issue. CFD methodology was used to evaluate various design options.
