CAPACITIVE DISTANCE SENSING IN SEMICONDUCTOR PROCESSING TOOLS

摘要

A wireless sensor (10, 100, 200) includes at least one capacitive plate (10, 12; 102, 104) for sensing a distance relative to an object (14) of interest within a semiconductor-processing environment. The sensor (10, 100, 200) includes an internal power source (28, 342) and wireless communication (362) such that distance and/or parallelism measurements effected using the capacitive plate (s) (10, 12; 102, 104) can be provided wirelessly to an external device.