US Patent 7785060 Multi-directional mechanical scanning in an ion implanter

A scanning arm assembly for multi-directional mechanical scanning of a semiconductor wafer or other substrate to be implanted includes a pair of drive arms connected by two linkage arms to form a quadrilateral. Rotary joints are provided to join adjacent arms together, and a substrate holder is provided on one linkage arm where it joins the other linkage arm. Thus, rotating the drive arms causes the substrate holder to move. Suitable control of the drive arms allows the substrate holder to be moved through an ion beam to follow many different paths and hence implant patterns.