CN213417045U

CN213417045U - Electroplating apparatus

Info

Publication number: CN213417045U
Application number: CN202022163349.0U
Authority: CN
Inventors: 史蒂文·贺·汪
Original assignee: Silicon Dense Core Plating Haining Semiconductor Technology Co ltd
Current assignee: Silicon Dense Core Plating Haining Semiconductor Technology Co ltd
Priority date: 2020-09-27
Filing date: 2020-09-27
Publication date: 2021-06-11
Anticipated expiration: 2030-09-27

Abstract

The utility model provides an electroplating device, which comprises an electroplating cavity, a wafer clamp and a power supply, and further comprises a moving mechanism, wherein the moving mechanism is connected with the wafer clamp and can drive the wafer clamp to move in or out of the electroplating cavity; the quantity of power is a plurality of, and the negative pole of a plurality of power all is connected with the wafer anchor clamps electricity, and the positive pole of a plurality of power all is connected with electroplating the chamber electricity, and the electric current scope of a plurality of power all is different. According to the electroplating equipment, the power supplies with different current ranges are arranged for the wafer clamp and the electroplating cavity respectively, so that after the wafer clamp with the wafer is moved into the electroplating cavity by the moving mechanism, the required range of the power supplies can be selected according to the process difference used in the electroplating cavity, and the current precision required by the corresponding process is matched. According to the electroplating equipment, the power supplies with different ranges are arranged and switched according to application scenes, so that the power supply which can meet the current process most is used for supplying power, and the electroplating quality is improved.

Description

Electroplating apparatus

Technical Field

The utility model relates to the field of electroplating, in particular to electroplating equipment.

Background

Wafer plating is a very important process in the chip manufacturing process in the field of integrated circuit manufacturing.

In the existing electroplating equipment, the range of a power supply (a rectifier) for supplying power to an electroplating cavity and a wafer clamp is constant, and when different electroplating processes are replaced and used in the same electroplating equipment or the same electroplating cavity, the range and the precision of the power supply required for implementing the processes can be changed and different. Under the condition that a single power supply is used for supplying power to the electroplating cavity and the wafer clamp, the power supply range or precision required by part of processes cannot meet the requirements of the processes, so that the quality of electroplating products is different and cannot meet the requirements when the electroplating equipment implements the processes.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

The to-be-solved technical problem of the utility model is to provide an electroplating device in order to overcome the defect that the electroplating quality has difference and can not meet the requirement when different electroplating processes are implemented in the same electroplating cavity in the prior art.

The utility model discloses an above-mentioned technical problem is solved through following technical scheme:

an electroplating device comprises an electroplating cavity, a wafer clamp and a power supply, and further comprises a moving mechanism, wherein the moving mechanism is connected with the wafer clamp and can drive the wafer clamp to move into or out of the electroplating cavity;

the wafer clamp is characterized in that the number of the power supplies is multiple, the negative poles of the power supplies are electrically connected with the wafer clamp, the positive poles of the power supplies are electrically connected with the electroplating cavity, and the current ranges of the power supplies are different.

According to the electroplating equipment, the power supplies with different current ranges are arranged for the wafer clamp and the electroplating cavity respectively, so that after the wafer clamp with the wafer is moved into the electroplating cavity by the moving mechanism, the required range of the power supplies can be selected according to the process difference used in the electroplating cavity, and the current precision required by the corresponding process is matched. According to the electroplating equipment, the power supplies with different ranges are arranged and switched according to application scenes, so that the power supply which can meet the current process most is used for supplying power, and the electroplating quality is improved.

Preferably, the anodes of the plurality of power supplies are respectively electrically connected with an anode assembly of the electroplating chamber, the anode assembly comprises a plurality of anode bodies and insulating layers, and two adjacent anode bodies are isolated by the insulating layers;

each of the power sources is capable of supplying power to one or more of the anode bodies, respectively.

Through this structural setting, through making the power supply respectively to the different positive pole bodies power supply on the positive pole subassembly in electroplating the chamber, make the positive pole body that is supplied power can carry out local electroplating to the corresponding position of wafer to the realization carries out the purpose of local correction to the inhomogeneous department of wafer plating layer after once or electroplating many times, and then can improve the homogeneity of wafer plating layer, and guarantee electroplating process's stability.

Preferably, the positive electrode of each power supply includes a positive electrode port disposed in one-to-one correspondence with the anode bodies of the anode assemblies, and the positive electrode ports are electrically connected with the corresponding anode bodies respectively.

Through this structure setting, make the positive pole subassembly that different power homoenergetic can compatible electroplating chamber, after making the wafer anchor clamps of being connected with power negative pole electricity and being shifted into this electroplating chamber, each power homoenergetic is supplied power through the specific positive pole body to this electroplating chamber, satisfies local electroplating's demand.

Preferably, the electroplating equipment further comprises a controller, the controller is electrically connected with the plurality of power supplies respectively, the controller is used for sending a power supply instruction to at least one power supply, and the power supply can supply power to at least one positive electrode port based on receiving the power supply instruction.

Through the structure, the controller is adopted to send a power supply instruction to the power supply so as to realize the purpose of local electroplating.

Preferably, the controller is further electrically connected with the moving mechanism, and the controller comprises a storage unit for storing the electroplating parameters of the electroplating equipment.

Through the structural arrangement, the control unit can acquire the electroplating parameters from the storage unit so as to control the specific power supply to provide accurate waveforms for the electroplating cavity.

Preferably, the number of the electroplating cavities is multiple, and the anodes of the multiple power supplies are respectively and electrically connected with all the electroplating cavities;

the moving mechanism can transfer the wafer clamp among the electroplating cavities, and the controller is also electrically connected with the moving mechanism.

The controller is electrically connected with the moving mechanism, so that the information of the moving mechanism moving the wafer clamp can be sent to the controller, and the controller acquires the electroplating parameters from the storage unit based on the data of which electroplating cavity the wafer clamp is located in, so that the power supply can supply different waveforms for all electroplating cavities.

Preferably, the number of the electroplating cavities is multiple, the moving mechanism can transfer the wafer clamp among the electroplating cavities, and the anodes of the power supplies are respectively electrically connected with all the electroplating cavities.

Through the structure, the electroplating equipment is respectively electrically connected with the electroplating cavities through the power anodes, and the wafer clamp electrically connected to the power cathode is moved between the electroplating cavities by utilizing the manipulator, so that the power supply can meet the aim of respectively electroplating wafers fixed on the wafer clamp in different electroplating cavities, thereby effectively reducing the quantity of the power supply in the electroplating equipment on the premise of meeting the electroplating quality, and reducing the equipment cost.

Preferably, the moving mechanism comprises a robot, the end of the robot is connected to the wafer holder, and the robot has a translational degree of freedom and a lifting degree of freedom.

Through the structural arrangement, the wafer clamp is moved by adopting the mechanical arm with translation freedom degree and lifting freedom degree, so that a better embodiment for enabling the wafer clamp to move among a plurality of electroplating cavities is provided.

Preferably, the manipulator is provided with a turnover motion module for realizing vertical turnover, and the turnover motion module is arranged at the tail end of the manipulator and is directly connected to the wafer clamp.

Through the arrangement of the turnover motion module, the wafer clamp is driven to realize the vertical turnover function, so that the wafer mounting surface of the wafer clamp for loading the wafer can face upwards, and the wafer can be conveniently transferred and put in or taken out in a manual or other mechanical arm mode in the wafer loading step.

Preferably, the manipulator is a six-degree-of-freedom manipulator.

The utility model discloses an actively advance the effect and lie in:

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural view of an electroplating apparatus according to embodiment 1 of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a schematic block diagram of an electroplating apparatus according to embodiment 1 of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is a plan view of an anode assembly of an electroplating chamber according to example 2 of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is an exploded schematic view of an electroplating chamber according to embodiment 2 of the present invention.

Fig. 5 is a schematic block diagram of an electroplating apparatus according to embodiment 2 of the present invention.

Fig. 6 is a schematic block diagram of an electroplating apparatus according to embodiment 3 of the present invention.

Fig. 7 is a schematic circuit diagram of a power supply according to embodiment 3 of the present invention.

Fig. 8 is a schematic structural view of an electroplating apparatus according to embodiment 4 of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a schematic view showing a state of use of an electroplating apparatus according to embodiment 4 of the present invention.

Fig. 10 is a schematic structural view of a moving mechanism according to embodiment 5 of the present invention.

Fig. 11 is a schematic view of a use state of a moving mechanism according to embodiment 5 of the present invention.

Fig. 12 is a schematic circuit diagram of an electroplating apparatus according to example 6 of the present invention.

Description of reference numerals:

wafer clamp 1

Wafer mounting surface 11

Moving mechanism 2

Turning motion module 21

Power supply 3

Electroplating chamber 4

Anode assembly 41

An anode body 411

Insulating layer 412

Fixing frame 42

Conductive substrate 43

Controller 5

Switch circuit 51

Calculation unit 52

Control unit 53

Storage unit 54

Detailed Description

The present invention will be more clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Example 1

The present embodiment provides an electroplating apparatus, as shown in fig. 1 and fig. 2, which includes a wafer holder 1, a moving mechanism 2, two power sources 3, and an electroplating chamber 4. The current ranges of the two power supplies 3 are different, wherein the current range of the power supply A is 0.0000-1.5000A, the current range of the power supply B is 0.000-20.000A, the accuracy of the two power supplies 3 is different, the current accuracy of the power supply A is higher, and the two power supplies also have the functions of high-frequency pulse, forward and reverse output and the like. And the current range of the power supply B is large and the precision is relatively low. The two power supplies 3 are respectively arranged in parallel, the negative electrodes of the power supplies 3 are electrically connected to the wafer clamp 1, the positive electrodes of the power supplies are electrically connected to the anode assembly 41 in the electroplating chamber 4, the moving mechanism 2 is connected with the wafer clamp 1, and the moving mechanism 2 can move the wafer clamp 1 into or out of the electroplating chamber 4. When the moving mechanism 2 moves the wafer clamp 1 into the plating chamber 4, the power supply a or the power supply B starts to supply power, so that the wafer on the wafer clamp 1 is conducted with the anode assembly 41 of the plating chamber 4 to perform the plating process.

By arranging two power supplies 3 with different current ranges in the electroplating equipment, when the liquid medicine (process) used in the electroplating cavity 4 is different, the power supply 3 more suitable for the process is started, so that the requirements of the process on the power supply range and precision are met. Specifically, the power supply B is mainly used when a conventional electroplating process is performed due to a large current range, but cannot cover the requirements of several special processes; the current range of the power supply A is small, but the corresponding precision is relatively high, and the power supply A also has the functions of high-frequency pulse, forward and reverse output and the like, and can meet the power supply requirements of special processes.

In the prior art, only one power supply 3 is configured for a single electroplating chamber 4, so that the precision in implementing different processes is difficult to completely meet the requirement. In the embodiment, according to the application scenario, a plurality of power supplies 3 with different ranges can be correspondingly installed in a single electroplating chamber 4, so that when different processes are implemented, the specific power supply 3 is selected to supply power, and the electroplating precision is improved.

In this embodiment, the moving mechanism 2 is a robot, the end of the robot is connected to the wafer chuck 1, and the robot at least needs to include a lifting degree of freedom for driving the wafer chuck 1 to move into or out of the plating bath.

Further, the tail end of the manipulator is also provided with an overturning motion module 21 capable of realizing vertical overturning, and the overturning motion module 21 is installed at the tail end of the manipulator and is directly connected to the wafer clamp 1 so as to realize the purpose of vertically overturning the wafer clamp 1. Specifically, as shown in fig. 4, at this time, the wafer is mounted on the lower surface of the wafer holder 1, so that the electroplating process can be performed after the wafer holder 1 is moved into the electroplating chamber 4, and after the wafer holder 1 is driven to be turned by the turning motion module 21, the position of the wafer holder 1 relative to the robot is as shown in fig. 5, at this time, the wafer mounting surface 11 of the wafer holder 1 can be upward, so that the wafer can be transferred into or taken out manually or by other robot.

Wherein, the turning motion module 21 in this embodiment is configured to mount a rotating motor at the end of the manipulator, and connect a rotating shaft of the rotating motor to the wafer clamp 1, so as to achieve the purpose of vertically turning the wafer clamp 1 in a manner of operating the driving motor, and certainly, in other embodiments, other driving schemes existing in the prior art may also be used to achieve the purpose of vertically turning the wafer clamp 1, and the specific structure is not repeated herein.

Example 2

This embodiment also provides a plating apparatus having substantially the same structure as the plating apparatus provided in embodiment 1. Except that the anode assembly 41 of the electroplating chamber 4 comprises several anode bodies 411 as shown in fig. 3. The anode body 411 is a soluble anode, and the material of the soluble anode is related to the material of the plating layer to be formed, for example, copper in copper plating. When the power source 3 supplies power to the anode assembly 41, the anode bodies 411 are not conducted with each other.

As shown in fig. 3, the anode bodies 411 are coaxially disposed and sleeved with each other, wherein the anode body 411 at the center is a cylinder, and the other anode bodies 411 are annular structures including a circular ring structure and a semi-annular structure. Preferably, the volume of each anode body 411 is the same. The anode assembly 41 in this embodiment, laid out in the manner of fig. 3, can achieve horizontal plating. It should be noted that the number of the anode bodies 411 may be set according to actual requirements, and may be, but is not limited to, 6 or 7, and specifically, the number of the anode bodies 411 may be selected from a range of 6 to 20. Of course, the more the number is set, the smaller the area of the upper surface of each anode body 411 is, the higher the accuracy of correction of plating uniformity is.

In this embodiment, the anode assembly 41 further includes an insulating layer 412. Two adjacent anode bodies 411 are isolated by an insulating layer 412, so that when the power supply 3 supplies power to the anode assembly 41, the anode bodies 411 are not conducted with each other. The insulating layer 412 is attached to the outer surface of the anode body 411 close to the axis of the anode assembly 41 in the two adjacent anode bodies 411, and a gap is formed between the insulating layer 412 and the anode body 411 far away from the axis of the anode assembly 41 in the two adjacent anode bodies 411; alternatively, the insulating layer 412 is attached to the inner surface of the anode body 411 far from the axis of the anode assembly 41 in the two adjacent anode bodies 411, and a gap is formed between the insulating layer 412 and the anode body 411 close to the axis of the anode assembly 41 in the two adjacent anode bodies 411. This gap is used for the plating solution to flow from the liquid inlet tank into the anode body 411, as well as the plating tank.

In this embodiment, PVDF or PFA can be used as the material of the insulating layer 412.

As shown in fig. 4, which is a schematic structural diagram of one of the plating chambers 4 in this embodiment, the plating chamber 4 further includes a fixing frame 42, the anode assembly 41 is fixed on the fixing frame 42, and the fixing frame 42 is provided with a liquid inlet tank for delivering the plating solution into the plating chamber 4. The fixing frame 42 is disposed and fixed in the plating chamber 4.

The anode assembly 41 in this embodiment further includes a conductive substrate 43, and an anode body 411 and an insulating layer 412 are provided on the conductive substrate 43.

As shown in fig. 5, the plating apparatus further includes a controller 5, and the controller 5 is electrically connected to the plurality of power supplies 3 at the same time. In the case of plating, the positive electrode of the power source 3 is electrically connected to the anode body 411 through the conductive substrate 43, and the negative electrode is electrically connected to the wafer chuck 1. The anode assembly 41 and the wafer clamp 1 with the wafer are arranged in parallel relatively, specifically: when performing horizontal plating, the anode assembly 41 shown in fig. 3 is disposed below the wafer chuck 1, and the radius of the plating surface of the anode assembly 41 is the same as the radius of the wafer, i.e., the shape and size of the anode assembly 41 are the same as the shape and size of the wafer. The controller 5 sends a power supply command to a specific power supply 3. When the power supply 3 receives a power supply command, the power supply supplies power to one or more target anode bodies 411, and at this time, the target anode bodies 411 are not conducted with each other.

The target anode body 411 is the anode body 411 corresponding to the target region. The target area is the area of the electroplated layer with the thickness outside the thickness threshold range; the thickness threshold range can be set according to actual requirements, and the threshold range is two values of an upper value and a lower value because electroplating and deplating are considered.

Wherein the power supply instruction comprises electroplating parameters; the plating parameters include one or more of the following parameters: a plating rate, a plating number of times, a plating current value applied to the target anode body 411, a plating voltage value applied to the target anode body 411, a power supply time period of each target anode body 411.

In this embodiment, the power supply 3 can individually supply power to one or several anode bodies 411 in a single electroplating chamber 4 to realize electroplating of a local area of a wafer, so that the condition of uneven electroplating layer after one or more times of electroplating (initial electroplating) can be corrected.

When the electroplating is corrected, the electroplating parameters of different areas can be obtained by the following modes: the thickness of the initially plated layer is measured by means of an off-line detection method using devices such as an ultrasonic sensor, a laser thickness gauge, an eddy current thickness gauge or a four-probe tester to obtain thickness distribution data, and plating parameters of each target anode body 411 are determined according to the thickness distribution data and experience in the plating process.

Example 3

This embodiment also provides a plating apparatus having substantially the same structure as the plating apparatus provided in embodiment 2. The difference is that, as shown in fig. 6, the controller 5 includes a calculation unit 52, a control unit 53, and a storage unit 54, and the calculation unit 52, the control unit 53, and the storage unit 54 are electrically connected to each other. The storage unit 54 stores the plating parameters, and the anode and the cathode of the power supply 3 can output accurate electric quantity by transmitting the plating parameters to the power supply 3.

As shown in fig. 7, the positive electrode of each power supply 3 includes a plurality of positive electrode ports, which are the same in number as the anode bodies 411 of the anode assemblies 41 and are electrically connected in one-to-one correspondence, and the positive electrode ports have switch circuits 51, and are electrically connected to the anode bodies 411 through the switch circuits 51. After the controller 5 generates a power supply command and transmits the power supply command to a specific power supply 3, the power supply 3 is turned on or off to supply power to the specific anode body 411.

Example 4

This embodiment also provides a plating apparatus having substantially the same structure as the plating apparatus provided in embodiment 3. Except that, in the present embodiment, as shown in fig. 8, the electroplating apparatus has three electroplating chambers 4, the anodes of two power supplies 3 are electrically connected to the anode assemblies 41 in the three electroplating chambers 4 at the same time, and the moving mechanism 2 further has horizontal freedom for transferring the wafer holder 1 between the electroplating chambers 4.

As shown in fig. 9, when the moving mechanism 2 moves the wafer holder 1 into one of the electroplating chambers 4, the controller 5 controls one of the two power sources 3 to start supplying power, so that the wafer on the wafer holder 1 is conducted with the anode assembly 41 of the electroplating chamber 4 to perform an electroplating process. Then, when the wafer holder 1 is moved into another electroplating chamber 4 by the moving mechanism 2 and power is supplied from one power source 3, the wafer on the wafer holder 1 is also conducted to the anode assembly 41 of another electroplating chamber 4.

In the scheme, the chemical solutions (processes) used in different electroplating cavities 4 are different, and the required power supply ranges and precision are different. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the plating chambers 4 are all simultaneously electrically connected to a plurality of power supplies 3 with different current ranges, so as to control the relatively more appropriate power supply 3 to supply power to the corresponding plating chamber 4 according to the application scenario.

This electroplating device is connected with a plurality of electroplating chambeies 4 electricity respectively through 3 anodals with a plurality of powers to utilize the manipulator to carry out the mode that removes between these electroplating chambeies with the wafer anchor clamps 1 that are connected to the 3 negative poles of power, realize sharing (a plurality of) power 3's purpose, thereby effectively reduced the demand to power 3 quantity in the electroplating device, and then reduce equipment cost.

Example 5

This embodiment also provides a plating apparatus having substantially the same structure as the plating apparatus provided in embodiment 4. The difference is that, as shown in fig. 10 and 11, the moving mechanism 2 in the present embodiment is a robot having six degrees of freedom, so that the robot can transfer the wafer chuck 1 to the plating chamber 4 at an arbitrary position by increasing the degree of freedom of the robot. In addition, in the present embodiment, the reverse movement module 21 is formed at the end position of the robot arm of six degrees of freedom for connecting the wafer chuck 1. The wafer mounting surface 11 of the wafer chuck 1 can be faced upward by the reverse motion module 21, so that the wafer can be transferred into or taken out of the wafer chuck manually or by another robot in the loading/unloading step.

Example 6

This embodiment also provides a plating apparatus having substantially the same structure as the plating apparatus provided in embodiment 4. The difference is that in the present embodiment, as shown in fig. 12, the anode bodies 411 of the anode assemblies in the three electroplating chambers 4 are equal in number and are all five. The positive electrodes of the two power sources 3 also include positive electrode ports corresponding one-to-one to the anode bodies 411 of the anode assemblies, and the positive electrode ports are electrically connected to the corresponding anode bodies 411 of the three anode assemblies, respectively.

Through the structural arrangement, the anode assemblies of different electroplating cavities 4 can be compatible with the two power supplies 3 at the same time, so that after the wafer clamp 1 electrically connected with the negative electrodes of the power supplies 3 is moved into the corresponding electroplating cavity 4, one of the power supplies 3 started under the control of the controller 5 can supply power to the specific anode body 411 of the electroplating cavity 4, and the requirement of local electroplating is met. Meanwhile, after the wafer clamp 1 is moved into the other electroplating chamber 4, one of the power supplies 3 which is started under the control of the controller 5 can supply power to the specific anode body 411 of the other electroplating chamber 4 based on the on-off control of the anode ports, so that the control of the power supply 3 of the equipment is relatively simple, and the reliability of the equipment is improved.

In this embodiment, these positive electrode ports also have a switch circuit 51, and the positive electrode ports are electrically connected to the anode body 411 through the switch circuit 51. The controller 5 controls the on/off state of the switch circuit 51 to supply power from the power source 3 to the specific anode body 411.

In this embodiment, the controller 5 is further electrically connected to a moving mechanism (not shown), so that the condition that the moving mechanism moves the wafer holder 1, especially the condition that the moving mechanism moves the wafer holder 1 into which electroplating chamber 4 can be sent to the controller 5. When the controller 5 acquires which electroplating cavity 4 the wafer clamp 1 is located in, the controller 5 sends the electroplating parameters in the storage unit to the power supply 3, so that the power supply 3 can supply different waveforms to the electroplating cavities 4, and the purpose of accurate control is achieved.

Although specific embodiments of the present invention have been described above, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that this is by way of example only and that the scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims. Various changes and modifications to these embodiments may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and the principles of the present invention, and these changes and modifications are all within the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. An electroplating device comprises an electroplating cavity, a wafer clamp and a power supply, and is characterized by further comprising a moving mechanism, wherein the moving mechanism is connected to the wafer clamp and can drive the wafer clamp to move into or out of the electroplating cavity;

2. The electroplating apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the anodes of a plurality of said power supplies are electrically connected to the anode assemblies of said electroplating chambers, respectively, said anode assemblies comprising a plurality of anode bodies and an insulating layer, two adjacent anode bodies being separated by said insulating layer;

3. The plating apparatus as recited in claim 2, wherein the positive electrode of each of the power supplies includes positive electrode ports disposed in one-to-one correspondence with the anode bodies of the anode assemblies, the positive electrode ports being electrically connected to the corresponding anode bodies, respectively.

4. The plating apparatus as recited in claim 3, further comprising a controller electrically connected to a plurality of said power sources, respectively, said controller being configured to send a power supply command to at least one of said power sources, said power source being capable of supplying power to at least one of said positive ports based on receipt of said power supply command.

5. The plating apparatus as recited in claim 4, wherein said controller is further electrically connected to said moving mechanism, said controller including a memory unit for storing plating parameters of said plating apparatus.

6. The plating apparatus as recited in claim 5, wherein said plating chambers are plural in number, and positive electrodes of said plurality of power supplies are electrically connected to all of said plating chambers, respectively;

7. The plating apparatus as recited in claim 1, wherein said plating chambers are plural in number, said moving mechanism is capable of transferring said wafer holder between a plurality of said plating chambers, and positive electrodes of a plurality of said power supplies are electrically connected to all of said plating chambers, respectively.

8. The plating apparatus of claim 7, wherein the movement mechanism comprises a robot having a distal end coupled to the wafer chuck, the robot having a translational degree of freedom and an elevation degree of freedom.

9. The plating apparatus as recited in claim 8, wherein said robot has a reverse motion module for effecting vertical reverse, said reverse motion module being provided at an end of said robot and being directly connected to said wafer chuck.

10. The plating apparatus of claim 8, wherein said robot is a six degree of freedom robot.