Tokyo Electron Limited

Other

Tatsuya Nishida

Osamu Kuroda

Takehiko Orii

Syujiro Oka

Kenji Miyachi

Satoshi Kaneko

Yuji Kamikawa

Shigenori Kitahara

Akira Koguchi

A substrate processing apparatus is provided. The apparatus includes a plurality of fluid suppliersfor supplying different processing fluids. In processing a wafer W, the substrate processing apparatus moves the fluid suppliersalong the peripheral part of the wafer W relatively. The fluid suppliersare arranged in a direction extending from the circumference of the wafer W to its inside. With the arrangement, the apparatus is capable of stable processing of the wafer W in spite of rotating the wafer W at a low speed. Further, it is possible to improve a throughput of the apparatus in resist processing.

Substrate processing apparatus

The substrate processing apparatus has an enclosure structure enclosing a substrate support member to define a processing space. The enclosure structure has an opening closed by a shutter. A processing fluid supply unit, which supplies processing fluid, such as chemical liquid, is accommodated in a housing. The processing fluid supply unit accommodated in the housing is advanced into the processing space through the opening of the enclosure structure to feed the processing fluid onto the substrate supported by the substrate support member.

A processing apparatus of the invention includes a rotary processing part for rotating and drying plural sheets of objects to be processed collectively in order to allow the object to be rotated immediately after they are accommodated in the rotary processing part and a balance adjusting mechanism for adjusting balance of the rotary processing part by moving counterweights in accordance with the number of the objects. Further the processing apparatus further includes a counter for counting the number of the objects accommodated in the rotary processing part and a control unit for controlling the balance adjusting operation of the balance adjusting mechanism in accordance with a predetermined relationship between the number of objects and the respective positions of the counterweights.

Sheet processing method

A substrate transporting and processing system generally comprises: a supply section of a carrier 1 for housing therein wafers W to be processed, in a horizontal state; a discharge section of the carrier 1; a wafer unloading arm 14 for unloading the wafers W from said carrier 1; a wafer loading arm 16 for loading the wafers W into the carrier 1; an attitude changing unit 40 for changing the attitude of the wafers W between a horizontal state and a vertical state; a processing section 3 for suitably processing the wafers W; and a wafer transport arm 56 for delivering the wafers W between the attitude changing unit 40 and the processing section 3 and for transporting the wafers W into and from the processing section. Thus, after the wafers W housed in the carrier 1 in the horizontal state are unloaded and the attitude of the wafers W is changed into the vertical state, suitable processes are carried out, and the attitude of the wafers W is changed in the horizontal state after processing, so that the wafers W can be housed in the carrier 1. Thus, it is possible to decrease the size of the whole system to improve the throughput and to improve the yield of products.

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Tosu, Japan

Tatsuya Nishida