Tokyo Electron Limited

Tokyo Electron Kyushu Limited

Nobukazu Ishizaka

Takahiro Kitano

Masami Akimoto

Norihisa Koga

Kazuhiro Takeshita

Masateru Morikawa

Yukihiko Esaki

Hirofumi Ookuma

Shinji Kobayashi

Shinichi Sugimoto

Akira Fukutomi

Naoya Hirakawa

Akihiro Fujimoto

Akira Yonemizu

Kazuo Sakamoto

Izumi Hasegawa

Tomoko Hamada

The present invention relates to a processing method for processing a substrate, and comprises a step of coating a coating solution on a surface of the substrate while relatively moving a coating solution discharge nozzle and the substrate and discharging the coating solution from the nozzle onto the substrate. Thereafter, the substrate is exposed to a solvent atmosphere of the coating solution or the pressure is temporarily applied thereto in a container. Thereafter, the pressure inside the container in which the substrate is housed is reduced to dry the coating solution on the substrate. According to the present invention, it is possible to narrow the so-called edge cutting width, which is at a periphery part of the substrate and is not commercialized, and to maintain an in-plane uniformity of the coating film.

Substrate processing method and substrate processing system

A coating film forming apparatus for forming a film by applying a coating solution to a substrate, which is provided with a cassette section, coating unit, developing unit, pre-treatment/post-treatment units and a main arm for transferring the substrate between the respective units. In the coating unit, provided is a coating section in which a resist is applied on the substrate in a manner of single stroke by intermittently moving the substrate in a Y-direction and by moving a nozzle in an X-direction, and provided is a reduced-pressure drying section for drying under reduced pressure the substrate after being applied, and further provided is equipment for removing the coating film adhered to a periphery of the substrate. Additionally, when the reduced-pressure drying section is arranged outside the coating unit, the main arm is covered with a cover so that the inside thereof is under a solvent atmosphere.

Coating film forming apparatus and coating unit

The present invention is a film forming unit for discharging a coating solution from a coating solution discharge nozzle toward a substrate to form a layer on a surface of the substrate, which has a supply flow path for supplying a cleaning fluid to a discharge flow path continuing to a discharging port of the coating solution discharge nozzle. When the cleaning fluid is positively supplied directly to the discharge flow path of the coating solution discharge nozzle, the supply pressure of the cleaning fluid as well as the capability of cleaning is added. Therefore, further effective cleaning is attained in compare with the conventional case where a coating solution discharge nozzle is simply dipped into a cleaning fluid. In consequence, even when the discharging port of the nozzle is minute, it is possible to perfectly remove the contamination. This allows the discharge pressure to remain constant so as to form a uniform coating layer on the substrate.

Film forming unit

The present invention relates to a processing unit for processing a substrate, which comprises a chamber for housing the substrate and forming a hermetically closeable processing room, and an exhauster for exhausting an atmosphere in the processing room from an upper portion of the chamber to reduce a pressure in the processing room. The processing unit of the present invention includes a current plate for controlling an atmospheric current formed in the processing room when the pressure is reduced, and the chamber has a mounting table for mounting the substrate thereon, an almost cylindrical lid body with its lower face open for covering the substrate on the mounting plate from above and forming the processing room integrally with the mounting table, and a supporting member for supporting the current plate so that the current plate is parallel to the mounting plate. According to the present invention, the speed of an atmospheric current flowing between the current plate and the substrate becomes uniform within the surface of the substrate, and consequently when a coating film on the substrate is dried, the film is planarized to have a uniform thickness.

Substrate processing unit

A coating area of wafer W is divided into, for example, three regions. The wafer W and/or a supply nozzle are driven in a predetermined coating direction and/or a coating direction such that coating start positions of the adjacent divided regions are not next to each other and/or the coating is not continuously performed in order of a coating end position and a coating start position when the coating end position of one region of the adjacent divided regions and the coating start position of the other region are adjacent to each other, whereby forming a liquid film of a resist liquid for each divided region of the surface of wafer W. As a result, a phenomenon, in which the resist liquid is drawn to the coating start position, so as to increase the film thickness of this portion, occurs in only the corresponding region. Resultantly, uniformity of an inner surface of the film thickness can be improved.

Coating film forming apparatus and coating film forming method

An apparatus includes a holding portion for holding a substrate, a nozzle, provided to face the substrate held by the holding portion, for discharging a solution to the substrate, a driver for moving the nozzle along a surface of the substrate relatively with respect to the substrate while the solution is being discharged to the surface of the substrate from the nozzle, a mask unit covering a portion other than a film formation area of the substrate and including a mask member for catching the solution from the nozzle, and a cleaner provided in the mask unit. The coating solution can be supplied to the surface of the substrate in a way similar to a picture drawn with a single stroke of a brush. A cleaning unit for cleaning the mask member does not need to be provided separately, leading to the facilitation of cleaning and a reduction in space.

Coating film forming apparatus

The present invention is a film forming unit for forming a film on a substrate by supplying a coating solution on the substrate from a discharge nozzle, including moving means for moving the discharge nozzle, wherein the moving means comprises a supporting member for supporting the discharge nozzle, a moving member for moving the supporting member, a guide shaft passing through bearing portion which is formed in the supporting member, and an air supply mechanism for supplying air to a space between the bearing portion and the guide shaft. The discharge nozzle discharges the coating solution while moving along the guide shaft. On the substrate the coating solution is applied along the locus of the discharge nozzle movement. Since air is supplied to the space between the bearing portion and the guide shaft, the supporting member can be made to be in the state of floating relative the guide shaft. As a result, even if the discharge nozzle moves at high speed, the discharge of the coating solution is prevented from being disturbed so that the predetermined coating of the coating solution is performed precisely.

To provide a coating apparatus which is capable of making short a lag time up to action of a valve and making operate a discharging pump and a valve with the best timing. By employing electric-air regulators ER and ER of small size and high response speed as a speed controller for controlling a switching speed of a switching valve AV or a suck-back valve SV, total flowing course is made short, thereby a time lag up to operation of a valve is made short. Further, by detecting the pressure of a resist liquid being discharged from a discharging pump by a pressure sensor and by controlling the operation of each device of a discharging pump a switching valve AV, and a suck-back valve SV through a controller a discharging pump a switching valve AV, and a suck-back valve SV can be operated with the best timings, and generation of particles due to dripping of a resist liquid at a tip end of a resist nozzle is prevented from occurring.

Coating apparatus

A process solution supplying apparatus including a solution source from which a process solution is supplied, a supply pipe having an upstream end and a downstream end and connected at the upstream end to the solution source, a nozzle connected to the downstream end of the supply pipe, a pump provided on the supply pipe, for supplying the process solution from the solution source to the nozzle, an upstream control valve provided on the supply pipe and located between the pump and the solution source, and a deaerating mechanism provided between the pump and the upstream control valve, for removing gases from the process solution.

Apparatus and method for supplying a process solution

The present invention provides a cleaning method in which an object to be cleaned is held such that a surface of the object to be cleaned faces a cleaning body and the object to be cleaned and the cleaning body are moved relative to each other in a state where the cleaning body is in contact with the surface to the object to be cleaned, thereby cleaning the surface of the object to be cleaned, wherein a contact pressure of the cleaning body to the surface of the object to be cleaned is set at most 20 gf/cm.sup.2, when the surface is cleaned.

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Kikuchi-gun, Japan

Nobukazu Ishizaka