Tokyo Electron Limited

Tokyo Electron Kyushu Limited

Keisuke Shigaki

Masami Akimoto

Yasushi Hayashida

Noriyuki Anai

Osamu Hirakawa

Haruhiko Yoshioka

Kazutoshi Yoshioka

Yasuhiro Sakamoto

Hiroyuki Sakai

Kimiharu Matsumura

Shunichi Iimuro

Masashi Moriyama

Yutaka Amemiya

Teruhiko Onoe

An exposure apparatus of this invention is used in an exposure process of semiconductor and LCD devices. The exposure apparatus includes a stage on which a semiconductor wafer is placed, a rotating mechanism for rotating the stage, a radiation unit arranged to oppose a support surface of the stage, a slider mechanism for reciprocating the radiation unit along a straight line passing through the center of the support surface of the stage, an exposure range input unit for inputting a desired exposure range of the wafer, an exposure range memory unit for storing the input exposure range, a CCD image sensor for detecting a reference position of the wafer, a relative position detector for detecting a relative position between the detected reference position and the radiation unit, a controller for controlling the sliding mechanism in correspondence with the relative position and the exposure range, and a light amount control mechanism for controlling an amount of light radiated from the irradiation mechanism to the wafer in correspondence with the relative position and the exposure range.

Exposure apparatus

A method and an apparatus, both for ashing unnecessary layers such as a photoresist layer, formed on a semiconductor wafer, by applying ozone to the layer, are disclosed. An ashing gas containing oxygen atom radical, or containing oxygen gas and an ashing-promoting gas, is applied to the layer, thereby ashing the layer readily and efficiently. The surface temperature of the layer is set at a prescribed value, and the ashing gas is applied uniformly onto the entire surface of the layer, or onto a part thereof, thus ashing the whole layer, or a part thereof, uniformly at a high rate, and the end-point of the ashing process is detected, thereby to enhance the efficiency of the ashing process.

Method of ashing layers, and apparatus for ashing layers

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Koshi, Japan

Keisuke Shigaki