Abstract: A heating chamber assembly for heating or maintaining the temperature of at least one wafer, employs thick film heater plates stacked at an appropriate distance to form a slot between each pair of adjacent heater plate surfaces. The heating chamber assembly may be employed adjacent one or more processing chambers to form a preheat station separate from the processing chambers, or may be incorporated in the load lock of one or more such processing chambers. The thick film heater plates are more efficient and have a better response time than conventional heat plates. A chamber surrounding the stack of heater plates is pressure sealable and may include a purge gas inlet for supply purge gas thereto under pressure. A door to the chamber opens to allow wafers to be inserted or removed and forms a pressure seal upon closing. The slots in the stack are alignable with the door for loading and unloading of wafers.

Abstract: A computer system is described having additional cooling capabilities in a docking station for a mobile computer. The docking station includes P- and N-doped semiconductor thermoelectric components. The thermoelectric components are connected in series when the mobile computer engages with the docking station. A current flowing through a doped semiconductor causes heat to be transferred either in a direction of a current through the semiconductor component or in a direction opposite to a current in the thermoelectric components, depending on their doping. The thermoelectric components alternate from being P-doped to N-doped and the direction in which current flows alternates accordingly so that heat is transferred in one direction only. A heat pumping effect is created by the thermoelectric components which does not require high-pressure contact upon engagement of the mobile computer with the docking station.

Abstract: A docking station is provided with apertures that line up with apertures in a notebook. When the notebook is docked on the docking station, air is forced out of the notebook through the openings of the docking station and the notebook.

Abstract: A portable computer has enhanced cooling of its processor in a docked mode of operation. External cooling of the computer processor takes place using a thermoelectric cooler in the docking station which has its cold side engaged in heat conducting relation in a bottom mount configuration with a thermal port on the computer for transporting heat from the computer to a cooling mechanism in the docking station. The portable computer is a notebook computer operable in undocked and docked modes in an example embodiment.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for endpoint detection is provided. Endpoint is determined by monitoring throttle valve position during a production instance of a given process, and by comparing a production signal obtained thereby with a calibration signal previously obtained by monitoring throttle valve position during performance of the process on a chamber or on a wafer of known constitution. The production process endpoint may be set based on the endpoint time of the calibration signal, or may be determined by filtering the calibration signal and the production signal to identify features thereof and by comparing the pattern of features of the production signal with the pattern of features of the calibration signal. Preferably throttle valve positions are filtered using a low pass finite impulse response filter of order three.