Tokyo Electron Limited

Tokyo Electron Kabushiki Kaisha

Tokyo Electron Sagami Limited

Tokyo Electron Tohoku Kabushiki Kaisha

Tokyo Electron Tohoku Limited

Hiroyuki Iwai

Takanobu Asano

Shingo Watanabe

Hirofumi Kitayama

Tamotsu Tanifuji

Ryoichi Okura

Hitoshi Kato

Ken Nakao

Katsutoshi Ishii

Kazunari Sakata

Katsuhiko Mihara

Tetsu Ohsawa

Tetsu Oosawa

Hisashi Kikuchi

Masato Kadobe

Yuji Ono

Hiroki Fukushima

Tsutomu Haraoka

Tsutomu Wakamori

Isao Furuya

Shinichi Wada

Keiji Takano

Yuuji Ono

A substrate transferring apparatus 8 for taking out a semiconductor substrate W to be processed housed in a container 6 from within the container 6 comprises support plates 9 and a positional error correcting member 23 on each support plate. Each support plate 9 has a base portion and is to be inserted into the container 6 to take out the substrate W. The positional error correcting member 23 is provided at the base portion of the support plate 9. The member 23 is to abut a part of the substrate W projecting out of the container 6 and to push back the substrate W into the container 6 when the support plate 9 is inserted into the container 6.

Substrate transferring apparatus

A treatment apparatus comprises a treatment chamber for performing a treatment for a workpiece W, a loading chamber connected to the treatment chamber, for loading and unloading a holding member which contains the workpiece into and from the treatment chamber, and an input/output chamber for inputting and outputting the workpiece to and from the loading chamber. The input/output chamber includes a cassette accommodating vessel port which holds a cassette accommodating vessel. The vessel is filled with clean air or an inert gas, and is airtightly closed. A cassette receiving mechanism is disposed below the port and lowers only the cassette of the vessel so as to receive the cassette. Thus, when the cassette is input and output to and from the outside of the treatment apparatus, the workpiece contained within the cassette is not exposed to the atmosphere in a working region. Consequently, it is not necessary to improve the cleanliness level of the atmosphere in the working region. As a result, the construction cost of the clean room and the operation cost thereof can be reduced. A clean air blowing device is disposed below the port. The clean air blowing device blows a side flow of clean air. Thus, the atmosphere at a position below the port where air tends to stay is circulated. Thus, since the surface of the workpiece loaded in the treatment chamber is exposed to the side flow, particles and the like that adhere thereto are purged.

Treatment apparatus

A processing apparatus is provided with a reaction furnace for subjecting semiconductor wafers, which are objects to be processed, to a predetermined processing; a storage rack for storing carriers (wafer cassettes), each containing a predetermined number of semiconductor wafers; and a conveyor for conveying the carriers into and out of the reaction furnace and the storage rack. In this case, a second conveyor mechanism, which comprises the storage portion and at least part of the conveyor, and a third conveyor mechanism are disposed within a sealed chamber in such a manner that they are isolated from the outer atmosphere. An exchange chamber that can be isolated from the outer atmosphere is further provided, for temporarily storing carriers that are to be conveyed into or out of the storage portion, through the sealed chamber via a communicating port. The interiors of the sealed chamber and the exchange chamber are formed so that they can be supplied with nitrogen. This ensures that unprocessed and processed semiconductor wafers can be held in an inert gas environment, so that contamination of the semiconductor wafers by organic substances and heavy metals can be prevented.

Processing apparatus

A heat treatment device including a handling chamber that has a carriers feed in/out opening for carriers holding plural sheets of objects to be treated parallelly vertical, a vertical heat treatment furnace for heat treating the objects and a posture changer for swinging the carriers near the carriers feed in/out opening of the handling chamber on a rotational center into a territory of lower sides of the carriers to change the posture of the objects to be treated from the vertical position to the horizontal position. The heat treatment device also has a carriers storage unit disposed above the posture changing means for storing a plural number of posture changed carriers, conveying device for conveying the carriers between the storage unit and the posture changing device and the heat treatment furnace side. Also, provided is a transferrer for transferring the objects-to-be-treated to/from an objects-to-be-treated holder for loading and unloading into/out of the heat treatment furnace side. The posture changer swings the carriers on the rotational center to sides of the carriers to change the carriers' posture from vertical to horizontal so the carriers have postures changed along a swing track of a minimum radius with small bulge amounts and a minimum moving amount. Thus, a conveying distance and a conveying time for conveying the posture changed carriers to the upper storage unit be reduced, and the heat treatment device can be smaller-sized and have improved processing efficiency.

Heat treatment method and device

Wafer boat

A vertical heat treatment system for heat treating a large number of semiconductor wafers housed in a boat at once includes a heat treatment unit having a boat loading/unloading port, a boat section communicating with the heat treatment unit through the boat loading/unloading port, an elevator mechanism for loading/unloading the boat between the boat section and the heat treatment unit through the boat loading/unloading port, a cassette section provided adjacent to the boat section, a wafer transfer mechanism for transferring wafers between a cassette and the boat, a gas supply mechanism for supplying a non-oxidization gas into the boat section, and a gas shower means for blowing the non-oxidization gas to the wafers in the vicinity of the boat loading/unloading port.

Vertical type heat treatment system

According to the invention, there is provided a substrate transferring apparatus for transferring substrates from a substrate transport container containing a plurality of substrates to be treated to a substrate holder for holding a plurality of substrates to be treated or vice versa, the apparatus including arms for supporting substrate, a supporting member for supporting the arms, and a drive arrangement for driving the supporting member to operate. Each of the arms include a plate shaped arm main body having a connecting section for connecting the arm to the drive arrangement, supporting sections having a thickness greater than that of the arm main body for supporting corresponding peripheral areas of the substrate, and stoppers having a thickness greater than that of the supporting sections for abutting lateral sides of the substrate to rigidly hold the substrate.

A vertical heat-treatment apparatus is provided with a mechanism for automatically transferring semiconductor wafers from carriers to a boat for a vertical type furnace. The automatic transferring mechanism comprises a port for receiving a plurality of carriers arranged in series in an upright state, a posture change mechanism for changing the posture of wafers in the carriers from the upright state to the horizontal state, a parallel transfer mechanism for transferring the carriers on the boat to the posture change mechanism, a carrier loading/unloading mechanism for loading the carriers on a station, a wafer loading/unloading mechanism for taking out the wafers from the carriers on the station in turn and transferring the taken-out wafers to the boat in turn, and a mounting mechanism for mounting the boat in the furnace. The carrier loading/unloading mechanism and the wafer loading/unloading mechanism are mounted on a common frame and are rotated and lifted at the same time.

Vertical heat-treatment apparatus having a wafer transfer mechanism

A wafer boats supporting wafers is loaded into and unloaded from a reaction tube with a lid therebelow in a vertical heat treatment apparatus, while holding the wafer boat vertical with respect to the lid. An arm is provided in a space below the reaction tube, for transferring wafer boats along a path, while holding the wafer boats vertical and in a substantially horizontal plane. Three stations are formed in the path. At the first station, unprocessed wafers are mounted on a first wafer boat located, while wafers mounted on a first wafer boat is being heat-treated in said reaction tube. Then, the first wafer boat is transferred from the first station to the third station, and is held at the third station. While the first wafer boat is held at the third station, the second wafer boat is lowered to the second station to unload the second wafer boat from the reaction tube, and then is transferred to the first station. Thereafter, the heat-treated wafers are removed from the second wafer boat located at the first station. Next, the first wafer boat is transferred from the third station to the second station, while the second wafer boat is located at the first station, and then is mounted onto the lid, thereby to load the first wafer boat into the reaction tube.

Method of loading and unloading wafer boat

Growing community of inventors

Sagamihara, Japan

Hiroyuki Iwai