Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co., Ltd.

Kaoru Aoki

Minobu Matsunaga

Kenji Sugimoto

Mitsumasa Kodama

Masakazu Sanada

Tsuyoshi Mitsuhashi

Katsushi Yoshioka

Satoshi Yamamoto

Moritaka Yano

Takashi Nagao

Masami Ohtani

Ryuji Kitakado

Tutomu Ueyama

Yukihiko Inagaki

Yoshiteru Fukutomi

Kazuhito Shigemori

Yoshihisa Yamada

Shigeru Sasada

Hidekazu Inoue

Osamu Tamada

Masao Tsuji

A substrate treating apparatus is provided for eliminating wasteful consumption of a treating solution in a treating mode in which the treating solution is delivered in a strip form to a substrate from a treating solution delivery nozzle sweeping over the substrate. In a first aspect of the invention, collecting vessels are arranged around a developing cup surrounding a wafer supported by a wafer holder. The collecting vessels collect part of a developer delivered from a discharge opening of a developer delivery nozzle outwardly of a surface of the wafer. In a second aspect of the invention, collecting vessels are arranged below a developer delivery nozzle, with collecting openings of the collecting vessels opposed to a discharge opening or openings of the delivery nozzle. The collecting vessels are moved longitudinally of the discharge openings according to a position of the developer delivery nozzle relative to the wafer.

Substrate treating method and apparatus

A series of substrate transport paths for transporting substrates is arranged on upper and lower stories. Substrates are transferable between the substrate transport path on the first story and the substrate transport path on the second story. The paths include a going-only path for transporting the substrates forward, and a return-only path for transporting the substrates in the opposite direction, these paths being arranged on the upper and lower stories. An indexer connects one end of the substrate transport path on one story to one end of the substrate transport path on the other story. An interface connects the other end of the substrate transport path on one story to the other end of the substrate transport path on the other story. This construction efficiently reduces a waiting time due to interference between the substrates transported along the going-only path and the substrates transported along the return-only path.

Substrate treating apparatus and method

A substrate processing apparatus includes a coating section, a developing section, a heat-treating section and a transport mechanism. The coating section has first processing units each for performing a coverage process to supply a photoresist solution to a substrate and cover a surface of the substrate with the photoresist solution, a second processing unit for spinning the substrate, after the coverage process, at high speed to make the photoresist solution into a film, dry the photoresist film, and clean the substrate. All substrates are processed with the same coating conditions to suppress differences in quality among the substrates. The first and second processing units perform the respective processes concurrently to improve the throughput of substrate processing.

Substrate processing apparatus

An atmospheric conditioning unit for supplying temperature- and humidity-controlled air to a chemical processing part (spin coater) is arranged immediately above a chemical processing part, between this chemical processing part and a heat treatment part (including a hot plate and a cool plate). Namely, the chemical processing part, the atmospheric conditioning unit and the heat treatment part are vertically arranged in a stacked manner. The atmospheric conditioning unit receives external air from an opening. A closed partition is provided to block air flow between the atmospheric conditioning unit and a transport area. The temperature- and humidity-controlled air supplied from the atmospheric conditioning unit to the spin coater forms a downflow in the spin coater, and thereafter rises through an opening and joins with the air flowing from the opening, to be introduced into the atmospheric conditioning unit again and reused.

Apparatus for processing a substrate providing an efficient arrangement

A substrate processing apparatus comprises a first substrate transfer unit having a first transfer path and a second substrate transfer unit having a second transfer path. A spin coating unit and a spin developing unit are arranged along the first transfer path, and a substrate cassette is arranged along the second transfer path. A substrate transport robot of the second substrate transfer unit selectively introduces a substrate received from a substrate transport robot of the first substrate transfer unit in one of external exposure apparatuses arranged on both end portions of the second transfer path, and discharges the substrate from the exposure apparatus for transfering the same to the substrate transport robot of the first substrate transfer unit. Thereby the substrate processing apparatus can avoid or relieve reduction of operational efficiency even if its throughput is different from that of an exposure apparatus.

An apparatus including a structure which separates a first transport robot (high temperature robot), which accesses a first processing part group including the thermal processing parts, from a second transport robot (low temperature robot) which accesses the only non-thermal processing parts. During circulating transportation of substrates to be processed, heat created at thermal processing parts is prevented from flowing into non-thermal processing parts. Semiconductor wafers are circulated one by one between the first processing part group which includes a hot plate and a second processing part group which does not include a hot plate and processed one at a time at each processing part. The high temperature robot accesses the first processing part group while the low temperature robot accesses the second processing part group. Transfer of a semiconductor wafer between the two robots is performed at a transfer part which is formed using a cool plate. Since the low temperature robot is never subjected to heat, temperatures at the non-thermal processing parts which are included in the second processing part group remain stable even when the low temperature robot accesses the non-thermal processing parts.

Processing apparatus having parts for thermal and non-thermal treatment

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Kyoto, Japan

Kaoru Aoki