On the lithography floor, a half-degree drift in photoresist soft bake is enough to push critical dimension (CD) control out of spec. Wafers back up, scrap climbs, and the line pays for thermal inconsistency. We built our photoresist drying infrared module to take that uncertainty out of wafer drying, soft bake, and hard bake. What matters under the hood We run short-wave infrared with a quartz-halogen emitter, dumping energy straight into the photoresist layer. The module holds wafer-level temperature uniformity at ±0.1°C across the bake face, so every site gets the same thermal budget. Cleanroom Class 1–100 compatibility comes from a particle-controlled chamber and low-outgas materials. Zero particle generation isn’t a slogan—it’s enforced by airflow design and a surface finish that meets semiconductor contamination standards. Repeatability is locked in with closed-loop pyrometry and recipe-driven control that holds ramp, soak, and cool with sub-second stability. Here is the thing: in wafer cleaning and drying, infrared heats fast and even, cutting the thermal cycle without lag or hot spots. For soft bake, that means solvent comes out of the resist quickly and uniformly, so adhesion improves and edge bead variability drops. During hard bake, it cures the image without overheating the layers underneath, so overlay stays tight. The payoff is fewer reworks, a tighter CD distribution, and yield you can count on. Energy use drops because infrared heats the target, not the hardware around it. Reliability is measured in 24/7 operation with planned maintenance windows, not surprise downtime. The module drops into existing coat/bake tracks, but alignment tolerances are tight—sub-millimeter positioning is required to keep uniformity. Plan for cleanroom-rated power and cooling; the emitter runs hot, and thermal management directly affects setpoint stability. Recipe transfer is straightforward, but every resist stack behaves differently. Validate bake profiles on product wafers first, then lock the parameters into the control system so execution stays consistent.