Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co., Ltd.

Takeo Okamoto

Yoshiteru Fukutomi

Masami Ohtani

Tsuyoshi Mitsuhashi

Yukihiko Inagaki

Kenji Sugimoto

Tetsuya Hamada

Katsushi Yoshioka

Masami Nishida

Takashi Ito

Noriaki Yokono

Kenichi Terauchi

Yoshiji Oka

Masahiro Himoto

A substrate treating apparatus disclosed herein realizes improved throughput. The substrate treating apparatus according to this invention includes an antireflection film forming block, a resist film forming block and a developing block arranged in juxtaposition. Each block includes chemical treating modules, heat-treating modules and a single main transport mechanism. The main transport mechanism transports substrates within each block. Transfer of the substrates between adjacent blocks is carried out through substrate rests. The main transport mechanism of each block is not affected by movement of the main transport mechanisms of the adjoining blocks. Consequently, the substrates may be transported efficiently to improve the throughput of the substrate treating apparatus.

Substrate treating apparatus

A robot (12) takes a wafer (3f) out of an indexer (1) and then transports the same to a heat processing part (41). A wafer (3e), which has already introduced in the heat processing part (41) is took out thereof by the robot (5). The wafer (3f) is introduced in the heat processing part (41) after a waiting time (18a) so that an excess heat processing in the heat processing part (41) can be avoided. The wafer (3e) is transported to a processing part (43) and introduced therein by the robot (5). After the robot (5) repeats the similar processings in processing parts (13, 42, 44), it returns to the wafer transferring robot (12) to receive a next wafer. At that time, the robot (5) waits for a predetermined time thereby a cycle time is adjusted. After the waiting, the robot (5) takes out the wafer (3f), which has been introduced in the heat processing part (41), out thereof. Since the cycle time is set in common for different lots, the waiting times (18a, 18b) are set individually for each lot.

Method of and device for transporting semiconductor substrate in

A deck movable between cassettes arranged on a base for storing a plurality of substrates in multiple stages and a substrate cleaning section for cleaning the substrates, supports a substrate fetching arm for fetching the substrates from the cassettes, and a cleaned substrate depositing arm for depositing treated substrates. The depositing arm is vertically movable between a position in which a substrate supporting surface thereof is situated below a substrate supporting surface of the substrate fetching arm to render the latter operative, and a position in which the supporting surface of the depositing arm is situated above the supporting surface of the fetching arm to render the depositing arm operative.

Substrate transport apparatus

An interface apparatus for transferring substrates between processing apparatus which provide various treatments for the substrates. The interface apparatus includes a transfer mechanism which, during a normal operation, receives substrates from an upstream processing apparatus and delivers the substrates to a downstream processing apparatus. Upon occurrence of a trouble in the downstream processing apparatus, the substrates transported from the upstream processing apparatus to the transfer mechanism are deposited in a substrate storage by a depositing and fetching mechanism. After the trouble is eliminated, the transfer mechanism delivers the substrates taken out of the storage to the downstream processing apparatus.

Interface apparatus for transporting substrates between substrate

The present invention is directed to a heat treatment apparatus for performing heat treatment of a substrate. According to the present invention, a thermocouple is introduced into a heating furnace and discharged from the heating furnace by carrier means in such a state that one side ends of the wires forming thermocouple are connected to the substrate and another ends of the wires forming the thermocouple are connected to fixed terminals of a terminal mount. Movable terminals of a terminal driving mechanism are brought into contact with the fixed terminals of the terminal mount, to outwardly extract output signals of the thermocouple. Thus, temperatures of the temperature measuring substrate can be accurately measured while securing air-tightness in the heating furnace. Further, entanglement of metal wires forming the thermocouple is prevented in introduction/discharging of the substrate.

Controlled furnace heat treatment

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Kyoto, Japan

Takeo Okamoto