On the fab floor, photoresist bake isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s your thermal budget, plain and simple. A 1°C swing can move critical dimensions, and one particle from a hot zone can kill a whole lot of good die. That’s why we built an infrared lamp with an air knife unit that treats those realities as the baseline, not the exception. What matters under the hood We pair short-wave infrared emitters with a high-velocity air knife. The emitters respond in milliseconds, which keeps closed-loop control tight and gives wafer-level uniformity of ±0.1°C across the bake surface. The air knife blasts through the boundary layer and sweeps away micro-contaminants, while the exhaust path is isolated so particle counts stay flat in Class 1–100 environments. Power density is adjustable across 150 mm to 300 mm wafers, and the thermal profile repeats lot after lot. Output stays within 2% over 5,000+ hours, and the unit is engineered to fit the interface and footprint of mainstream semiconductor equipment. Why it holds up in lithography In lithography, soft bake is about pulling solvent out and setting film stress; hard bake is what locks adhesion before etch or plating. This unit stabilizes both steps, so you cut rework and improve line yield. Fast ramp-up trims cycle time, and precise dwell control keeps the thermal budget inside spec without overshoot. Energy use drops because the emitter heats the target, not the surrounding frame, and the air knife keeps the optics and chamber running cooler. The payoff is predictable critical dimension control, less scrap, and fewer unplanned stops on the line. What to watch on install The air knife cranks up local velocity, so size the exhaust to hold negative pressure at the process window—otherwise, turbulence can spike particle counts. Installation is straightforward on standard tool platforms, but the ducting and filter strategy need to match the chamber geometry and cleanroom class. We supply interface drawings and a validation recipe, but you’ll want tight coordination with the tool integration team to qualify the unit and lock in the thermal profile.