Self-draining edge wheel system and method

摘要

Provided is a system and method to prevent the transfer of accumulated fluid to wafers during cleaning operations. Specifically, when a wafer is secured by a plurality of self-draining edge wheels, any fluid contacting the self-draining edge wheels is channeled away from the wafer towards a bottom surface of each of the self-draining edge wheels. The channeling occurs by manufacturing the bottom portions of the self-draining edge wheels to have different configurations. The different configurations enhance fluid channeling away from the wafer. To further prevent fluid from wetting a bottom surface of the self-draining edge wheels, an edge wheel dryer can be positioned proximately adjacent to at least one self-draining edge wheel to suction fluid away from the bottom surface by using a vacuum channel of the edge wheel dryer.