Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co., Ltd.

Other

Screen Holdings Co., Ltd.

Japan Tobacco Inc.

Morita Kagaku Co., Ltd.

Akira Izumi

Katsuhiko Miya

Hideki Adachi

Nobuatsu Watanabe

Yong-Bo Chong

Itsuki Kajino

Keiji Toei

Kenichi Sano

Takashi Kawamura

Hajime Matsushita

Tsutomu Ueyama

Naozumi Fujiwara

Tsutomu Takeuchi

Hiroshi Ichinose

Toshio Tatsuno

Shigeo Ishiguro

Sigenobu Mizusaki

Tsuyoshi Matsuka

Tetsuo Kawakatsu

Tomoyoshi Okada

Takeshi Matsuka

A rinsing liquid (DIW) is discharged from a rinsing liquid discharge port formed in a blocking member to perform rinsing processing to a substrate surface while a nitrogen gas is supplied into a clearance space, and a liquid mixture (IPA+DIW) is discharged from a liquid mixture discharge port formed in the blocking member to replace the rinsing liquid adhering to the substrate surface with the liquid mixture while the nitrogen gas is supplied into the clearance space. Thus, an increase of the dissolved oxygen concentration of the liquid mixture can be suppressed upon replacing the rinsing liquid adhering to the substrate surface with the liquid mixture, which makes it possible to securely prevent from forming an oxide film or generating watermarks on the substrate surface.

Substrate processing apparatus and substrate processing method

Substrate processing method

A cooling gas is discharged from a cooling gas discharge nozzle toward a local section of a front surface of a substrate on which a liquid film is formed. And then the cooling gas discharge nozzle moves from a rotational center position of the substrate toward an edge position of the substrate along a moving trajectory while the substrate is rotated. As a result, of the surface region of the front surface of the substrate, an area where the liquid film has been frozen (frozen area) expands toward the periphery edge from the center of the front surface of the substrate. It is therefore possible to form a frozen film all over the front surface of the substrate while suppressing deterioration of the durability of the substrate peripheral members since a section receiving supply of the cooling gas is limited to a local area on the front surface of the substrate.

Substrate processing apparatus, liquid film freezing method and substrate processing method

A rinsing liquid supplier includes a temperature adjuster. The temperature adjuster cools DIW to a temperature lower than room temperature. This temperature adjuster cools down DIW to a temperature not more than 10 degrees centigrade for instance, and cooling down to an even lower temperature of 5 degrees centigrade or below is more preferable. Meanwhile, the temperature adjuster maintains DIW at not less than 0 degrees centigrade, which prevents freezing of the DIW. The cooled DIW supplied to a rinsing liquid pipe is discharged from the rinsing liquid discharge nozzle toward the top surface of the substrate, to thereby form a liquid film. Further, the cooled DIW is discharged toward the rear surface of the substrate from the liquid discharge nozzle via the liquid supply pipe, to thereby form the liquid film on the rear surface. Since the liquid films are already cooled, they are frozen in a short time when the cooling gas is discharged toward the top surface and the rear surface of the substrate.

A substrate having a liquid film formed by pre-processing unit is transported by a substrate transport robot from the pre-processing unit to a freeze processing unit disposed away from the pre-processing unit. In the freeze-processing unit, the liquid film is frozen. This causes the adhesion power of contaminants adhering to the surface of the substrate reduce, and therefore the contaminants is detached from the surface of the substrate. Subsequently, the substrate which was subjected to the freezing process, is transported from the freeze processing unit to a post-processing unit which is disposed away from the pre-processing unit and the freeze processing. In the post-processing unit, a cleaning liquid is supplied to the frozen film on the rotating substrate, thereby easily removing the contaminants adhering to the substrate together with the frozen film.

Substrate processing method and substrate processing apparatus

A substrate processing apparatus comprises a spin chuck holding and rotating a substrate and an atmosphere blocking member, corresponding in planar shape and size to the substrate, arranged oppositely and proximately to the upper surface of the substrate and formed with a processing solution discharge port and a gas discharge port discharging a processing solution and gas to the central portion of the upper surface of the substrate respectively. The atmosphere blocking member is formed with an outer gas discharge port outside the gas discharge port in plan view for discharging the gas to the upper surface of the substrate. The outer gas discharge port is so formed on the atmosphere blocking member that an arrival position of the gas discharged from the outer gas discharge port is closer to the center of the upper surface of the substrate held by a spin base than an intermediate portion between the center and the outer peripheral edge of the upper surface. Thus provided is an apparatus capable of effectively expelling droplets remaining on the substrate before spin-drying the substrate by high-speed rotation.

Substrate processing apparatus and substrate processing method drying substrate

A blocking plateis disposed opposing a substrate W which is held by plural chuck pinsand a processing liquid is supplied from a processing liquid nozzleto a space SP between the front surface Wf of the substrate and an opposed surfaceof the blocking plate, whereby the processing liquid attains the liquid-tight state. While the liquid-tight state with the processing liquid is maintained, the substrate W and the blocking platerotate. In this condition, a liquid (pure water) to which ultrasonic vibration has propagated is injected from an ultrasonic nozzleapproximately perpendicular to a side wall surfaceof the blocking plate. While the ultrasonic vibration spreads inside the blocking platealong the horizontal direction, some vibrational waves spread uniformly and widely from the opposed surfaceto the processing liquid attaining the liquid-tight state and vibrate the processing liquid. This prevents concentration of the vibrational energy at the front surface Wf, which makes it possible to uniformly process the substrate W while suppressing damage to the substrate W.

Apparatus and method for performing predetermined processing on substrate with ultrasonic waves

A substrate (W) is held and rotated in its horizontal position on a spin base (). A processing liquid can be supplied from a processing liquid lower nozzleto the lower surface of the substrate (W). The upper surface of the substrate (W) is covered with an atmosphere blocking plate (). A splash guard () is disposed so as to circumscribe the substrate (W). A guard () is curved such that the vertical cross section of a recovery port () of the splash guard () is of substantially U-shape opening to the center of the splash guard (), so that the maximum internal diameter part of the recovery port () is brought near a guard (). The space between the internal wall surface of the recovery port () and the substrate (W) is increased to thereby suppress the bounce of the processing liquid flying spattering from the substrate (W) in rotation.

Substrate processing apparatus

Particles adhering to the surface of a substrate are removed by physical action of injection of droplets or megasonic vibrations or by combination of the physical action and slight etching on the surface of the substrate. On the other hand, metal contaminants adhering to the surface of the substrate are altered to hydroxides with an alkaline solution and thereafter dissolved with an acid solution to be removed. Thus, it is possible to rapidly process the substrate while minimizing the quantity of etching on the surface of the substrate.

Substrate processing method using alkaline solution and acid solution

Disclosed is a substrate processing method including a substrate rotating step for rotating a substrate with the substrate held almost horizontally within a chamber; a peripheral edge processing step for discharging a processing liquid to a lower surface of the substrate rotated in the substrate rotating step and causing the processing liquid to flow around an upper surface of the substrate at a peripheral edge thereof from the lower surface of the substrate to process the peripheral edge of the upper surface of the substrate in the chamber; and a both-surface processing step for discharging the processing liquid to both the surfaces of the substrate rotated in the substrate rotating step to process both the surfaces of the substrate in the chamber.

A first gas nozzle and a second gas nozzle are fixedly provided in the vicinity of the forward end of a nozzle arm. The nozzle arm is rotated along a locus R while a substrate rinsed with deionized water is rotated, for discharging nitrogen gas from the first and second gas nozzles. Visible moisture is loosely expelled from the upper surface of the substrate by spraying the nitrogen gas from the first gas nozzle, and moisture slightly remaining on a fine pattern or the like can also be completely removed by spraying the nitrogen gas from the second gas nozzle to the same region of the substrate as that sprayed with the nitrogen gas by the first gas nozzle. Consequently, the surface of the substrate can be stably and reliably dried. Thus, a substrate processing apparatus capable of stably and reliably drying the surface of the substrate is provided.

Substrate processing apparatus and substrate processing method drying substrate by spraying gas

A support member of a rotary base member engages with a substrate for preventing the substrate from horizontal movement and rotation with respect to the rotary base member while allowing vertical movement of the substrate, and a proximity suction plate is provided above the rotary base member so that the lower surface thereof is formed on a plane on the rotary base member parallel to the substrate for downwardly and outwardly injecting gas toward the overall upper surface of the substrate and sucking the substrate in a proximity state by Bernoulli effect. It is possible to provide an apparatus capable of reliably preventing mist of a processing solution or the processing solution from reaching the upper surface of the substrate when rotating the substrate and supplying the processing solution to the lower surface for processing the substrate.

Chambers each include an inlet port for supplying N gas and an outlet port for discharging an inner atmosphere, and therefore the chambers have different amounts of supply of N gas in a unit of time and different amounts of discharge of inner atmosphere in a unit of time. With this structure, the first to fourth processing chambers are controlled to have the lowest inner pressure(p ), a transfer module is controlled to have an inner pressure (p ) higher than the inner pressure (p ) and a loader and an unloader are controlled to have the highest inner pressure (p ). That eliminates the necessity for keeping the whole substrate processing apparatus at the highest inner pressure (p ) and supplying a large amount of N gas, and therefore it is possible to achieve processings of substrate at lower cost, with shorter purge time and less contamination of substrate.

A buffer chamber is provided between a transfer chamber and a cleaning/drying chamber, and completely-closable shutters are provided between the transfer chamber and the buffer chamber as well as between the buffer chamber and the cleaning/drying chamber. The cleaning/drying chamber serving as a composite processing part including a processing in the wet atmosphere is connected with the remaining chambers of dry atmospheres.

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Akira Izumi