Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Ebara Corporation

Other

Riichiro Aoki

Hiromi Yajima

Shoichi Kodama

Toyomi Nishi

Yukio Imoto

Tetsuji Togawa

Gisuke Kouno

Manabu Tsujimura

Atsushi Shigeta

Shiro Mishima

Kazuaki Himukai

Harumitsu Saito

Masako Watase

Toshiro Maekawa

Tamami Takahashi

Satomi Hamada

Takashi Omichi

Koji Ono

Masako Kodera

Takanobu Nishimura

Motoaki Okada

A polishing apparatus includes an arrangement of a plurality of units to deal with various operations and a robot having at least one arm. The plurality of units are disposed around the robot and include a loading unit for receiving thereon a, e.g. dry, workpiece to be polished, a polishing system including at least one polishing unit for polishing the workpiece, a washing system and a drying system at least including one washing unit for washing and drying the polished workpiece, and an unloading unit for receiving thereon a resultant clean and dry polished workpiece.

Method and apparatus for dry-in, dry-out polishing and washing of a semiconductor device

A polishing apparatus for polishing a surface of a workpiece includes a housing unit, a partition wall partitioning an interior of the housing unit into a first chamber and a second chamber, a polishing section disposed in the first chamber and having a turntable with an abrasive cloth mounted on an upper surface thereof and a top ring positioned above the turntable for supporting the workpiece to be polished and pressing the workpiece against the abrasive cloth, and a cleaning section disposed in the second chamber and cleaning the workpiece which has been polished. The polishing apparatus further includes a transferring device for transferring the workpiece which has been polished from the polishing section to the cleaning section through an opening and an exhaust system for exhausting ambient air from each of the polishing section and cleaning section separately and independently.

Polishing apparatus

Polishing apparatus and a method of polishing and cleaning and drying a wafer

An apparatus for conveying a workpiece as used to convey the workpiece such as a semiconductor wafer, a glass substrate or liquid crystal panel, between processing apparatuses when the workpiece is processed in the plurality of processing apparatuses. The amount of liquid on a surface of a workpiece is adjusted to a predetermined amount, and the workpiece, which retains the predetermined amount of liquid, is conveyed between processes. The adjusting includes both supplying a sufficient amount of liquid onto the surface of the workpiece, which is in a certain state, and removing a certain amount of liquid from the surface of the workpiece.

Apparatus for conveying a workpiece

Polishing apparatus and method

A method and apparatus for conveying workpiece is used for conveying a workpiece such as a semiconductor wafer, glass substrate or liquid crystal panel between processing apparatuses when the workpiece is processed in a plurality of processing apparatuses. The method includes adjusting the amount of liquid on a surface of a workpiece to a predetermined amount, and conveying the workpiece which retains the predetermined amount of liquid between processes. The surface of the workpiece is kept wet by the liquid on the workpiece. The adjusting includes supplying a sufficient amount of liquid onto the surface of the workpiece which is in a certain state, and removing a certain amount of liquid from the surface of the workpiece.

Method and apparatus for conveying a workpiece

A semiconductor cleaning method includes scrubbing a semiconductor wafer using a cleaning member made primarily of polyurethane and having micropores in a surface contacting the semiconductor wafer. The micropores have an average diameter ranging from 10 to 200 .mu.m. The cleaning member may be made of either polyurethane foam or non-woven fabric composed of fibers bound together by urethane resin. By this scrubbing step, particles that are strongly attached to the surface of a substrate such as the semiconductor wafer can easily be removed. During cleaning of the substrate, surface irregularities and crystalline protrusions on the surface of a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer can be scraped off to adjust the surface roughness of the semiconductor wafer to a desired degree for making the semiconductor wafer surface flat.

Method for cleaning workpiece

A polishing facility integrates separate components of polishing such as wafer transport, polishing, cleaning and drying in one standardized facility to provide efficient polishing operation at low cost. The facility is designed to deal with a variety of different types of wafers, including different types of surface film, and is designed also to enables quick and low cost upgrading of the facility to meet advancing requirements of customers. The polishing facility can be placed within a cleanroom to provide efficient handling of polished wafers for further processing and fabrication tasks. Individual work component of polishing is arranged in one block having its own power supply and signal lines, and is controlled by a central controller having a dedicated software program for each work component. Therefore, if upgrading of the facility is required on any work component, only that work component requiring attention needs to be repaired/replaced, thus eliminating the need to shut down the entire facility as in conventional polishing setups. Each work component is modularized for easy replacement and inventory purposes. The overall effect of the integrated polishing facility is that the efficiency of the polishing operation is significantly improved at minimal cost of labor and capital investments.

Polishing facility

A polishing apparatus includes a detachable light weight cloth cartridge which shows little deformation under uneven loading during a polishing operation. Either mechanical or non-mechanical fixation of the cloth cartridge to a turntable is achieved. Mechanical fixation involves attaching the cloth cartridge to the turntable at peripheral and center sections of the cloth cartridge. Non-mechanical fixation involves attaching the cloth cartridge to the turntable by a vacuum arrangement. The assembly of the cloth cartridge and the turntable not only produces excellent flatness on polished semiconductor wafers by maintaining a level polishing surface, but also improves the production yield by preventing breakage of wafers during the polishing process.

Polishing apparatus including cloth cartridge connected to turntable

Polishing aparatus and method

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Riichiro Aoki