ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,444,644, issued on Oct. 14, was assigned to Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).
"Lift pin assembly" was invented by Yogananda Sarode Vishwanath (Bangalore, India) and Anand Kumar (Bangalore, India).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Apparatuses for substrate transfer are provided. A lift pin assembly can include a lift pin, a purge cylinder, and a lift pin guide. The lift pin guide is disposed adjacent the purge cylinder. The lift pin guide and the purge cylinder have a passage formed therethrough in which the lift pin is disposed. The purge cylinder includes one or more nozzles that direct the flow of gas radially inward into a por...