Tokyo Electron Limited

Seiki Ishida

Taro Yamamoto

Masahiro Nakaharada

Yukiyoshi Saito

Yoshio Kimura

Katsuhiro Morikawa

Michishige Saito

Jun Ookura

Junya Minamida

Shogo Fukui

Kento Kurusu

Hidetaka Shinohara

Junichi Iwano

Disclosed is a substrate processing apparatus. The substrate processing apparatus includes a first nozzle that ejects droplets of a chemical liquid toward a front surface of a substrate, the droplets being formed by mixing a gas supplied by a gas supply mechanism and a heated chemical liquid supplied by a heated chemical liquid supply mechanism with each other, and a second nozzle that ejects the heated deionized water supplied by the heated deionized water supply mechanism toward the rear surface of the substrate. The first nozzle supplies the droplets to the front surface of the substrate heated from the rear surface thereof by the heated deionized water supplied from the second nozzle.

Substrate processing apparatus, substrate processing method and storage medium

A substrate liquid processing apparatus includes a substrate holding device which holds a substrate in horizontal position and rotate the substrate around vertical axis of the substrate, a liquid discharge device which is positioned underneath central portion of lower surface of the substrate in the horizontal position and discharges processing liquid toward the lower surface of the substrate, and a gas discharge passage structure which has a gas discharge passage formed around the discharge device such that drying gas passes through. The discharge device has a head including a cover which is extending beyond upper end of the passage such that the cover is covering the upper end of the passage, a liquid discharge port which is protruding from the cover toward the substrate in the horizontal position, and a curved portion which is formed between the port and cover such that the curved portion has a surface bending downward.

Substrate liquid processing apparatus

A first holding plate and a second holding plate are provided. The first holding plate has a first flat plate portion facing a bottom surface of a substrate and holds the substrate so as to form a gap between the first flat plate portion and the substrate as a first gap, and the second holding plate has a second flat plate portion facing the bottom surface of the substrate and holds the substrate so as to form a gap between the second flat plate portion and the substrate as a second gap. Depending on a processing to be performed, any one of the first holding plate and the second holding plate is mounted on a rotational shaft of a shaft mechanism that includes a fluid supply unit configured to supply a fluid to the bottom surface of the substrate and the rotational shaft configured to rotate the substrate. The processing is performed on the substrate by supplying the fluid to the bottom surface of the substrate from the fluid supply unit.

Substrate processing apparatus and substrate processing method

A coating and developing system for forming a resist film on a substrate by coating the substrate with a liquid resist and developing the resist film after the resist film has been processed by immersion exposure that forms a liquid layer on the surface of the substrate is capable of reducing difference in property among resist films formed on substrates. The coating and developing system includes: a cleaning unit; a carrying means; and a controller. A set time interval is determined such that the substrate is subjected to the immersion exposure process after contact angle drop rate at which contact angle between the cleaning liquid and a surface of the substrate drops has dropped from an initial level at the wetting time point when the surface of the substrate is wetted with the cleaning liquid to a level far lower than the initial level.

Coating and developing system and coating and developing method

Disclosed is a substrate processing apparatus which can achieve an improvement in throughput and suppress the reduction in the operation rate of the entire apparatus even when a problem occurs. In the disclosed apparatus, at the rear end of a substrate loading block including a loading/unloading arm for transferring a wafer to a carrier, a first, a second, and a third processing blocks are disposed in that order. In the substrate loading block, transfer stages are provide for transferring a wafer from the loading/unloading arm to the first processing block, for transferring a wafer to the second processing block, and for transferring a wafer to the third processing block so that the wafer on the transfer stage is directly carried to the second processing block by a first direct carrying mechanism, and to the third processing block by a second direct carrying mechanism.

Substrate processing apparatus

There are disposed two second substrate transferring apparatusesand, which are configured to transfer substrates W between substrate processing unitsand a substrate accommodating part, in the up and down direction so as to correspond to the respective groups to which the plurality of substrate processing unitsare divided. In addition, there is disposed a substrate displacing apparatusthat is configured to displace a substrate W, which has been transferred by a first substrate transferring apparatusto the substrate accommodating partand is not yet processed by the wafer processing unit, to another position in the up and down direction in the substrate accommodating part, as well as displace a substrate W, which has been processed by the wafer processing unitand transferred by the second substrate transferring apparatusto the substrate accommodating part, to another position in the up and down direction in the substrate accommodating part

Substrate processing system

A coating and developing system for forming a resist film on a substrate by coating the substrate with a liquid resist and developing the resist film after the resist film has been processed by immersion exposure that forms a liquid layer on the surface of the substrate is capable of reducing difference in property among resist films formed on substrates. The coating and developing system includes: a cleaning unit for cleaning a surface of a substrate coated with a resist film; a carrying means for taking out the substrate from the cleaning unit and carrying the substrate to an exposure system that carries out an immersion exposure process; and a controller for controlling the carrying means such that a time interval between a wetting time point when the surface of the substrate is wetted with the cleaning liquid by the cleaning unit and a delivery time point when the substrate is delivered to the exposure system is equal to a predetermined set time interval. The set time interval is determined such that the substrate is subjected to the immersion exposure process after contact angle drop rate at which contact angle between the cleaning liquid and a surface of the substrate drops has dropped from an initial level at the wetting time point when the surface of the substrate is wetted with the cleaning liquid to a level far lower than the initial level.

Leakage of an atmosphere of a solvent vapor used by a smoothing process for smoothing the surface of a resist pattern outside from a smoothing unit is prevented to facilitate incorporating the smoothing unit into a coating and developing system. A substrate processing system has a coating and developing block, a smoothing block, an airflow producing unitfor producing down airflow that flows down from above the coating and developing blockand the smoothing block, and a main controllerfor controlling the airflow producing unit. The main controllercontrols a flow regulating valveplaced in an air passageconnecting the airflow producing unitto the coating and developing blockand a flow regulating valveplaced in an air passageconnecting the airflow producing unitto the smoothing blockon the basis of a signal provided by a pressure sensorfor measuring the pressure in the coating and developing blockand a signal provided by a pressure sensorfor measuring the pressure in the smoothing blocksuch that the pressure in the smoothing blockis lower than that in the coating and developing block

A coating and developing apparatus comprises a washing section for washing the surface of a substrate after it has been subjected to a dipping exposure process in an exposing apparatus, and a first substrate carrying means adapted to transfer the substrate carried out from the exposing apparatus after the dipping exposure process to the washing section. The first substrate carrying means is controlled by a control means. Namely, the control means controls the first substrate carrying means such that the substrate can be washed in the washing section in a period of time prior to a time zone in which the size of liquid drops remaining on the substrate due to the dipping exposure process becomes smaller quite rapidly, based on a carrying-out ready signal for the substrate from the exposing apparatus, by using a relationship between the time elapsed from the end of the dipping exposure process and the size of liquid drops remaining on the substrate due to the dipping exposure process.

Coating and developing apparatus, coating and developing method and storage medium in which a computer-readable program is stored

A substrate carrying apparatus includes an arm body; supporting portion provided in the arm body and adapted to support a region inside the periphery of the rear face of the substrate; a one-side restricting portion and an other-side restricting portion provided at opposite positions across the periphery of the substrate to restrict the peripheral positions of the substrate; and liquid receivers provided between each supporting portion and each restricting portion. A liquid drop attached to the rear peripheral portion of the substrate flows down on the bottom face of each liquid receiver. Even though repeated substrate carrying operations are performed and thus the liquid drop is accumulated in each liquid receiver, there is no risk that the liquid drop in each liquid receiver would be scattered in the air by the action of the periphery of the substrate and hence the scattered liquid would be attached again onto the surface of the substrate.

Substrate carrying apparatus, substrate carrying method, and coating and developing apparatus

A coating and developing system is capable of preventing the contamination of a substrate with particles while the same coats a surface of a substrate with a resist film and develops the resist film after the substrate has been processed by immersion exposure. The coating and developing system includes: a processing block including coating units for forming a resist film on a surface of a substrate and developing units for processing the resist film formed on the substrate with a developer, and an interface block connected to the processing block and an exposure system for carrying out an immersion exposure process. The interface block includes: substrate cleaning units for cleaning the substrate processed by the immersion exposure process, a first carrying mechanism and a second carrying mechanism. The first carrying mechanism carries a substrate processed by immersion exposure to the substrate cleaning unit. The second carrying mechanism carries the substrate cleaned by the substrate cleaning unit. Thus the contamination of the substrate with external particles can be prevented and hence the spread of contamination with particles over the processing units of the processing block and substrates processed by the processing units can be prevented.

An apparatus for processing a substrate of the present invention comprises a holder holding a substrate, a supply pipe being supplied with a processing solution from a first end and supplying the processing solution to the substrate from a second end, a first temperature controller having a first temperature controlled water circulated inside which controls a first temperature around the second end of the supply pipe and a second temperature controller having a second temperature controlled water drained from the first temperature controller circulated inside, which controls a second temperature around the first end of the supply pipe. With such a configuration, the temperature controlled water used for controlling the temperature of the processing solution just before its application onto the substrate can be recycled for controlling the temperature of the processing solution just after being supplied to a supply pipe.

Liquid coating apparatus with temperature controlling manifold

An apparatus for the coating treatment comprises a coating section for coating a substrate with a process solution, a heating section for heating the substrate coated with the process solution, and a recovery section for recovering at least a part of the solvent vapor contained in the hot exhaust gas discharged from the heating section. The recovery section includes a cooling apparatus, and the hot exhaust gas containing a solvent vapor generated from the substrate when the substrate is subjected to a heating treatment is passed through the cooling apparatus so as to cool and condense at least a part of the solvent vapor contained in the hot exhaust gas so as to recover the solvent in the form of a liquid.

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Koshi, Japan

Seiki Ishida