Nissin Ion Equipment Co., Ltd.

Nissin Electric Co., Ltd.

Makoto Nakaya

Nobuo Nagai

Kohei Tanaka

Tomoyasu Matsuno

Shinya Hisada

Yoshio Tamura

Shigehisa Tamura

Satoru Yuasa

An apparatus provided with a wafer processing chamber that houses a wafer supporting mechanism supporting a wafer and is used to irradiate the wafer supported by the wafer supporting mechanism with an ion beam and a transport mechanism housing chamber that houses a transport mechanism provided underneath the wafer processing chamber and used for moving the wafer supporting mechanism in a substantially horizontal direction, wherein an aperture used for moving the wafer supporting mechanism along with a coupling member coupling the wafer supporting mechanism to the transport mechanism is formed in the direction of movement of the transport mechanism in a partition wall separating the wafer processing chamber from the transport mechanism housing chamber.

Ion beam irradiation apparatus

Three axes that are orthogonal to each other at one point are taken as an X-axis, a Y-axis and a Z-axis. An irradiation angle setting motor holds a holder, and sets an irradiation angle &#x3b8; of an ion beam by rotating this holder around a center axis that is parallel to the X-axis. A Y-axis linear motor causes the holder and the irradiation angle setting motor to ascend and descent in the direction of the Y-axis. A Z-axis linear motor moves the holder, the irradiation angle setting motor and the Y-axis linear motor in the direction of the Z-axis. A control unit operation-controls synchronously the Y-axis linear motor and the Z-axis linear motor so that a substrate holding surface of the holder reciprocates and scans linearly along an S-axis that is parallel to the substrate holding surface and orthogonal to the X-axis.

A holder driving device has: a holder holding a substrate, a shaft supporting the holder, a driver for driving the shaft reciprocatingly and linearly in the direction along the shaft, a bearing unit having mechanical linear motion bearings for supporting the shaft thereon and having one or more stages of exhaust chambers surrounding the shaft; a vacuum pump for vacuum-pumping the exhaust chambers of the bearing unit; and a gas replacement mechanism for supplying dry gas, the humidity of which is lower than that of at least the surrounding atmosphere and the pressure of which is positive, from the outside of the bearing unit to at least the neighborhood of an atmosphere-side entrance portion of a gap between an end portion of the bearing unit one the side opposite to the vacuum vessel and the shaft passing the end portion, so as to replace the atmosphere near the entrance portion by the dry gas.

Holder driving unit

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Makoto Nakaya