Asml Holding N.v.

Silicon Valley Group, Inc.

Sangjun Han

Jung-Hoon Chun

Edmond R Ward

Robert Parkash Mandal

Emir Gurer

Tom Zhong

John W Lewellen

Donald R Sauer

James C Grambow

Ted C Bettes

Edward C Lee

James Derksen

A method of and an apparatus for coating a substrate with a polymer solution to produce a film of uniform thickness, includes mounting the substrate inside an enclosed housing and passing a control gas, which may be a solvent vapor-bearing gas into the housing through an inlet. The polymer solution is deposited onto the surface of the substrate in the housing and the substrate is then spun. The control gas and any solvent vapor and particulate contaminants suspended in the control gas are exhausted from the housing through an outlet and the solvent vapor concentration is controlled by controlling the temperature of the housing and the solvent from which the solvent vapor-bearing gas is produced. Instead the concentration can be controlled by mixing gases having different solvent concentrations. The humidity of the gas may also be controlled.

Method of uniformly coating a substrate

An improved method and apparatus for coating semiconductor substrates with organic photoresist polymers by extruding a ribbon of photoresist in a spiral pattern which covers the entire top surface of the wafer. The invention provides a more uniform photoresist layer and is much more efficient than are current methods in the use of expensive photoresist solutions. A wafer is mounted on a chuck, aligned horizontally and oriented upward. An extrusion head is positioned adjacent to the outer edge of the wafer and above the top surface of the wafer with an extrusion slot aligned radially with respect to the wafer. The wafer is rotated and the extrusion head moved radially toward the center of the wafer while photoresist is extruded out the extrusion slot. The rotation rate of the wafer and the radial speed of the extrusion head are controlled so that the tangential velocity of the extrusion head with respect to the rotating wafer is a constant.

High efficiency photoresist coating

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Sangjun Han