Tokyo Electron Limited

Tokyo Electron Kyushu Limited

Hiroyuki Kudou

Issei Ueda

Masami Akimoto

Naruaki Iida

Akira Yonemizu

Masanori Tateyama

Yasuhiro Sakamoto

Jun Ohkura

Hiroichi Inada

Hiroki Taniyama

Miyako Yamasaka

Koji Mahara

A blast unit for sending air from the top of a processing chamber to the bottom thereof and an exhaust pipe for exhausting gas from the bottom of the processing chamber are provided. Concomitantly with a change in pressure in the processing chamber, intervals of a slit damper and/or the degree of opening of a damper is controlled by a controller and thus a blast amount or an exhaust amount is controlled, thereby maintaining the pressure in the processing chamber almost constant.

Substrate processing apparatus and substrate processing method

A wafer processing apparatus includes a common path, extending in a Y-axis direction, in which one wafer or a plurality of wafers are conveyed, a plurality of process units stacked on both sides of the common path to constitute multi-stage structures, a main handler moved in the common path in the Y-axis direction and rotated about a Z axis at an angle &thgr; to load/unload the wafer into/from the process units, an arm section arranged to move in the main handler in the Z-axis direction, a plurality of holding arms arranged in the arm section to constitute a multi-stage structure so as to respectively hold the wafers, each holding arm being advanced and retreated on an X-Y plane from the arm section, an optical sensor, arranged in the arm section, for detecting a holding state of the wafer in each of the plurality of holding arms, and a controller for controlling an operation of the main handler, an operation of the arm section, and operations of the plurality of holding arms on the basis of a detection result from the optical sensor, wherein the controller advances or retreats each holding arm while operating at least one of the main handler and the arm section, and causes the optical sensor to detect the holding state of the wafer by each holding arm before the holding arm reaches a corresponding one of the process units.

A substrate processing system for processing a substrate in accordance with a photolithographic process, comprising a cassette section, a process section having a plurality of process units each processing a substrate, main transfer arm mechanism arranged in a transfer space surrounded by the process section and the cassette section, for transporting substrates one by one not only between a cassette of the cassette section and each of the plurality of process units but also between the plurality of process units, and a loop transfer path movably supporting the main transfer arm means in a lower portion of the transfer space and guiding the main transfer arm means so as to face each of the process units and the cassette section.

Substrate processing system

The present invention provides a wet etching method applied to a thin, including the steps of (a) setting in advance an etching rate of said thin film in view of a kind of the thin film to be etched, components of said etchant solution, and temperature, (b) loading the substrate on a spin chuck such that the surface having the thin film formed thereon faces upward and, (c) detecting a thickness of the thin film in at least a peripheral portion and a central portion of the substrate. The method also includes the steps (d) calculating moving speeds of a nozzle at predetermined passing points of said nozzle on the basis of the etching rate set in step (a) and a film thickness detected in the step (c), (e) rotating the substrate by driving the spin chuck, and (f) controlling the moving speed of the nozzle, while allowing the nozzle to supply the etchant solution to the thin film formed on the surface of the substrate which is being rotated, to conform with the moving speeds calculated in step (d) at the predetermined passing points of the nozzle so as to move the nozzle in a radial direction of the substrate.

Method for wet etching of thin film

A processing apparatus of this invention has an openable window portion for transferring a target processing substrate, and an inlet port for introducing the outer atmosphere. Further, the processing apparatus includes a closed processing chamber for performing predetermined processing for the target processing substrate transferred via the window portion, an exhaust means for evacuating the interior of the processing chamber, and an opening/closing mechanism for closing the inlet port, and opening the inlet port when the pressure in the processing chamber is negative.

Processing apparatus for target processing substrate

A substrate transfer apparatus for receiving and delivering a substrate among a plurality of process locations and transferring the substrate among the process locations comprises an apparatus body, a transfer member, movably provided on the apparatus body, for supporting and transferring the substrate, the transfer member having a plurality of support portions for supporting the substrate at different positions in the same plane, moving mechanism for moving the transfer member for enabling the transfer member to receive and deliver the substrate, and switching mechanism for switching the position of the transfer member among a plurality of positions for receiving and delivering the substrate on the support portions.

Substrate transfer apparatus

A wafer processing apparatus includes a common path, extending in a Y-axis direction, in which one wafer or a plurality of wafers are conveyed, a plurality of process units stacked on both sides of the common path to constitute multi-stage structures, a main handler moved in the common path in the Y-axis direction and rotated about a Z axis at an angle .theta. to load/unload the wafer into/from the process units, an arm section arranged to move in the main handler in the Z-axis direction, a plurality of holding arms arranged in the arm section to constitute a multi-stage structure so as to respectively hold the wafers, each holding arm being advanced and retreated on an X-Y plane from the arm section, an optical sensor, arranged in the arm section, for detecting a holding state of the wafer in each of the plurality of holding arms, and a controller for controlling an operation of the main handler, an operation of the arm section, and operations of the plurality of holding arms on the basis of a detection result from the optical sensor, wherein the controller advances or retreats each holding arm while operating at least one of the main handler and the arm section, and causes the optical sensor to detect the holding state of the wafer by each holding arm before the holding arm reaches a corresponding one of the process units.

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Kumamoto-ken, Japan

Hiroyuki Kudou