Screen Holdings Co., Ltd.

Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co., Ltd.

Mitsukazu Takahashi

Koji Hashimoto

Kazuhiro Honsho

Akito Hatano

Takatoshi Chiba

Toshiyuki Kobayashi

Takashi Ota

Ryo Muramoto

Masahiro Miyagi

Taiki Hinode

Yoshio Ito

Jun Shibukawa

Hideo Nishihara

Yoshihiro Koyama

Katsuichi Akiyoshi

Kiyofumi Nishii

Toshimitsu Funayoshi

Yusuke Akizuki

Motoyasu Hayashi

Yoshiro Koyama

Tosiyuki Kobayashi

A substrate treating apparatus and a substrate treating method. The substrate treating apparatus includes a treating unit and a controller. The treating unit includes a substrate holder, a rotation driving unit, a treatment liquid supplying unit, a liquid collecting unit, and a guard driving unit. The substrate holder holds a substrate in a horizontal posture. The rotation driving unit rotates the substrate holder. The liquid collecting unit includes a first guard, a second guard, and a liquid inlet. The first guard and the second guard are arranged so as to surround the substrate holder laterally. The liquid inlet is defined by the guards. The liquid inlet is open toward the substrate held by the substrate holder. The guard driving unit moves the second guard in a vertical direction. The controller controls the guard driving unit in accordance with the shape of the substrate held by the substrate holder, thereby changing a height position of an upper end of the liquid inlet.

Substrate treating apparatus and substrate treating method

A top plate when located at a first position is held by an opposing-member holder, and the top plate when located at a second position is held by a substrate holder and rotated along with the substrate holder. In a substrate processing apparatus, a first processing liquid nozzle located at a supply position inside a to-be-held part of the top plate supplies a first processing liquid through an opposing-member opening to a substrate and is moved from the supply position to its retracted position, and a second processing liquid nozzle is moved from its retracted position to the supply position and supplies a second processing liquid through the opposing-member opening to the substrate. This configuration suppresses or prevents mixture of multiple types of processing liquids, as compared with the case where multiple types of processing liquids are sequentially supplied from a single processing liquid nozzle.

Substrate processing apparatus, substrate processing system, and substrate processing method

A substrate container including a casing, a rack, a casing holder, a casing lifting mechanism, a lid, and a lid holder. When holding of substrates with the rack shifts to holding of the substrates with the casing holder and the lid holder, the casing lifting mechanism moves the casing holder upward, whereby the casing holder moves the substrates upward. When the holding of the substrates with the casing holder and the lid holder shifts to the holding of the substrates with the rack, the casing lifting mechanism moves the casing holder downward, whereby the casing holder moves the substrates downward.

Substrate container, load port apparatus, and substrate treating apparatus

A substrate container includes a casing, a rack, a lid, a lid holder, and a substrate separating mechanism. The casing has on its front face an opening. The substrate separating mechanism has a contact part that directly contacts substrates. The contact part is movable relative to the lid holder. The lid moves forward to the opening, and the contact part moves backward relative to the lid holder, whereby the lid holder holds ends of the substrates. The lid moves backward from the opening, and the contact part moves forward to the lid holder, whereby the substrate separating mechanism separates the substrates from the lid holder.

A substrate processing apparatus and method includes, a plate that has a size equal to or larger than a principal face of the substrate, and has a horizontal and flat liquid holding face opposing the principal face of the substrate from below. A processing liquid supply unit supplies a processing liquid to the liquid holding face. A control unit controls the processing liquid supply unit and a movement unit to supply the processing liquid to the liquid holding face to form a processing liquid film, a contact step of bringing the principal face of the substrate and the liquid holding face close to each other to bring the principal face of the substrate into contact with the processing liquid film, and a liquid contact maintenance step of maintaining the processing liquid in contact with the principal face of the substrate.

Substrate processing device and substrate processing method

A substrate container includes a housing, rack members, housing-side support members for supporting ends of substrates, a moving mechanism for moving the substrates, a lid, and lid-side support members for supporting ends of the substrates. The housing-side support members have deepest portions for supporting the ends of the substrates to be immovable upward. In a state where the lid is attached to the housing, the housing-side support members and lid-side support members clamp the ends of the substrates in between, with lower surfaces of the substrates out of contact with the rack members, and the housing-side support members support the ends of the substrates in the deepest portions. When the lid detaches from the housing, the moving mechanism moves the substrates supported in the deepest portions to disengage the ends of the substrates from the deepest portions, and places the substrates in a substantially horizontal position on the rack members.

Substrate container, a load port apparatus, and a substrate treating apparatus

For the transport of a substrate from a cassette to a back surface cleaning processing unit in a cleaning processing block, a transfer robot rotates the substrate through 90 degrees from a horizontal attitude in which the front surface of the substrate is positioned to face upward into a standing attitude while transporting the substrate out of a cassette to a substrate passing part, and passes the substrate in the standing attitude to the substrate passing part. The substrate passing part holds the substrate in the standing attitude. A main transport robot receives the substrate held in the standing attitude. The main transport robot rotates the substrate through 90 degrees from the standing attitude into a horizontal attitude in which the back surface of the substrate is positioned to face upward while transporting the substrate from the substrate passing part to the back surface cleaning processing unit.

Substrate processing apparatus and substrate processing method for performing cleaning process and the like on substrate

In a thermal processing apparatus, using a lamp for heating a substrate, an opening is formed for a camera unit, which is used to image portions of an auxiliary ring supporting the substrate, to obtain the position of the center of the auxiliary ring. The camera further images the substrate to determine the center of the substrate before the thermal processing apparatus receives and places the substrate on the auxiliary ring. The thermal processing apparatus moves the substrate so that the center thereof coincides with the center of the auxiliary ring, and thereafter places the former on the latter. Thus, the auxiliary ring can be designed to reduce overlaps of the auxiliary ring and the outer edge of the substrate while overlaps can be uniform over the entire circumference of the substrate to improve temperature uniformity of the substrate.

Thermal processing apparatus and thermal processing method

A thermal processing apparatus, performing processing accompanied with heating on a substrate, having an upper lamp group directed toward a prescribed direction and a lower lamp group perpendicularly intersecting with the upper lamp group is provided with a lower reflector between the upper and lower lamp groups. The lower reflector is so provided as to reflect light from lamps, included in the lower lamp group, present on both end regions in relation to the direction of arrangement. Thus, the thermal processing apparatus can efficiently irradiate an auxiliary ring with reflected light from the lower lamp group and improve temperature uniformity when heating the substrate.

In a thermal processing apparatus irradiating a substrate with light from a lamp for heating the substrate, an opening is formed in a reflector for mounting a camera unit. The camera unit images three portions of an auxiliary ring supporting the substrate, for obtaining the position of the center of the auxiliary ring before the thermal processing apparatus receives the substrate therein. The camera unit further images the substrate for obtaining the position of the center of the substrate before the thermal processing apparatus receives the substrate therein and places the same on the auxiliary ring. The thermal processing apparatus moves the substrate so that the center thereof coincides with the center of the auxiliary ring, and thereafter places the former on the latter. Thus, the auxiliary ring can be so designed as to reduce overlaps of the auxiliary ring and the outer edge of the substrate while the overlaps can be rendered uniform over the entire circumference of the substrate for improving temperature uniformity of the substrate.

Thermal processing apparatus

A substrate heat treatment apparatus irradiating a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer with light and performing heat treatment is provided. 19 lamps are arranged on a plane in the form of a honeycomb to form a lamp group The lamp group has 6-fold rotation symmetry about a symmetry axis XR. A substrate W is rotated about a rotation axis XW in a plane parallel to that formed by the lamp group The symmetry axis XR of the lamp group and the rotation axis XW of the substrate W are displaced for relaxing peaks and bottoms of illuminance distribution on the substrate W resulting from regularity of arrangement of the lamp group Consequently, fluctuation of radial illuminance distribution on the substrate W is reduced and improving uniformity is improved. When the uniformity of radial illuminance distribution on the substrate W is improved, temperature uniformity of the substrate W in heat treatment can be ensured.

Heat treatment apparatus

A substrate temperature measuring apparatus includes a temperature signal generating device provided in contact with a substrate for generating a signal indicating its own temperature which follows the temperature of the substrate by thermal conduction, a device connected and responsive to the output of the temperature signal generating device for determining whether contact between the substrate and the temperature signal generating device is appropriate or not, and a device for carrying out a predetermined process according to a determination result of the determining device. It is possible to apply heat treatment to the substrate, to prevent the substrate from being subjected to heat treatment, or to give a necessary alarm according to the determination result. Since the next substrate is at room temperature when it first comes into contact with the temperature signal generating device after heat treatment, the temperature signal generating device lowers its temperature rapidly in such a manner that reflects a state of contact between the substrate and the temperature signal generating device. Based on change of the output of the temperature signal generating device at this time, it is possible to detect an undesired state of contact between the substrate and the temperature signal generating device, and to prevent inaccurate measurement of the temperature of the substrate.

Apparatus for measuring the temperature of a substrate

A temperature measuring device for measuring the temperature of a wafer heated by light irradiation includes: a sheath thermocouple for detecting the temperature of a wafer to be measured by contacting the wafer to be measured; and a covering member for covering the surface of the sheath thermocouple. The surface of the covering member is flat in a predetermined region, and the part in the region can plane-contact the surface of the wafer. Thus, the temperature of the wafer can be measured accurately and in a stable manner, and the wafer surface is free from contamination with adhesives or the metal of the thermocouple.

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Mitsukazu Takahashi