Abstract: A ball valve with fluid communicating ports, namely a first port and subsequent port or ports has a valve body having faces, one of the faces namely the mounting face is generally flat, a bore on the said mounting face defines the location of said first port. A number of mounting holes are provided near the edges of the valve body, the axes of said mounting holes are generally perpendicular to said mounting face.

Abstract: An apparatus for batch processing of a wafer is disclosed. In one embodiment the batch processing apparatus includes a bell jar furnace having a diffuser disposed between gas inlets and the substrate positioned within the furnace to direct flows within the chamber around the perimeter of the substrate.

Abstract: A substrate carrier for a parallel wafer processing reactor supports a plurality of substrates. The substrate carrier includes a plurality of susceptors, which may be thermal plates or annular rings that are arranged horizontally in a vertical stack. The substrates are mounted between pairs of susceptors on two or more supports provided around the outer periphery of the susceptors. The number of substrates mounted between each pair of susceptors may the same or different but is two or more between at least one pair of susceptors.