Tel Sagami Limited

Tokyo Electron Limited

Tokyo Electron Kabushiki Kaisha

Tokyo Electron Sagami Kabushiki Kaisha

Tokyo Electron Tohoku Kabushiki Kaisha

Tokyo Electron Tohoku Limited

Tokyo Electron Toboku Kabushiki Kaisha

Wataru Ohkase

Seishiro Sato

Ken Nakao

Kenichi Yamaga

Yasushi Yagi

Takanobu Asano

Kazuo Terada

Satoshi Kawachi

Kazutsugu Aoki

Masaaki Hasei

Katsuo Nishi

Hiroyuki Mitsuhashi

Wafer processing apparatus with a processing vessel, upper and lower

A heat treatment apparatus comprising heat rays radiating means having a sheet-like heat rays radiating section, a process tube radiated and heated by heat rays shot from the sheet-like heat rays radiating section, and means for carrying a substrate, which has a surface of a semiconductor film and/or a dielectric film to be treated, into and out of the process tube, wherein said substrate is positioned to the sheet-like heat rays radiating section in the process tube in such a way that the incident angle of heat rays onto the peripheral portion of the treated surface of said substrate becomes smaller than 60.degree., so that heat rays absorptivity at the peripheral portion of said surface can be increased.

Heat treatment apparatus and method

A temperature control method in a rapid heat treatment apparatus comprising simulatively heating dummy wafers in a process tube and previously detecting and grasping by temperature sensors a wafer temperature rising pattern, a heater temperature rising pattern and an internal atmosphere temperature rising pattern, arranging wafers to be processed in the process tube, detecting a temperature of each zone and that of each heater element by the temperature sensors, upon heating the wafers, and controlling each heater element on the basis of the detected temperatures and the wafer, heater and internal atmosphere temperature rising patterns by a controller to rapidly and uniformly raise the temperature of each wafer until the temperature of the wafers in each zone reaches the intended one and becomes stable.

Method and apparatus for controlling temperature in rapid heat treatment

A heat treatment apparatus including a flat heat source having a plural number of ring-shaped heating units of different diameters arranged concentrically and so as to face a processing surface of a semiconductor wafer for example, a heat control portion which performs either independent or batch control of a plural number of ring-shaped heating units, a process tube which houses the object for processing, and a movement mechanism which brings a processing surface of the object for processing and the flat heat source into relative proximity. By this configuration, it is possible to have fast heat treatment such as oxidation and diffusion processing, or CVD processing, to a uniform temperature for the entire processing surface of a flat object for processing.

Heat treatment apparatus utilizing flat heating elements for treating

A heat shielding member is provided on an object-to-be-processed holder for loading/unloading an object to be processed to/from a thermal processing position. The heat shielding member can cover a space below the processing position. As a result, leakage of radiation heat from the processing position can be blocked, and an optimum temperature gradient at the processing position can be maintained. Accordingly the entire surface of the object to be processed can be efficiently thermally processed at uniform temperatures, and throughputs in the fabrication steps can be improved.

Thermal processing apparatus with heat shielding member

A vertical heat treatment apparatus which has a vertical processing vessel with heat source, and a loading mechanism for holding an object to be treated and for loading and unloading the object into and out of the processing vessel through its bottom. The loading mechanism includes an outer cylindrical shaft which is moved up and down by a lift drive unit, a liner plate disposed on the upper end of the outer rotary shaft, and a rotary holder which is disposed in the liner plate and is moved up and down independently of the liner plate. As a result, a large object to be treated, such as a large-diameter semiconductor wafer, LCD substrate, etc., can be rapidly heated up to a required treatment temperature while uniform temperature distributions are attained. Thus, heat-treatments of high precision can be efficiently conducted.

Vertical heat treatment apparatus with a rotary holder turning

The present invention relates to semiconductor wafers which have a through hole formed at their center portion. A processing apparatus provided with a conveyor means including a wafer holder having a holding protrusion which engages with this through hole implements oxidation and dispersion processing or CVD processing to a processing surface of a semiconductor wafer so that a semiconductor wafer can have heat treatment performed without accompanying film growth faults or heat distortion.

Semiconductor wafer processing apparatus

Instrument for transferring boats for thermal treatment of semiconductor

Heat insulating cylinder for thermal treatment of semiconductor wafers

A pitch changing device of the present invention includes a lift mechanism for unloading a plurality of wafers arranged in a cassette at predetermined pitches from the cassette while the pitches are kept unchanged, and a chuck mechanism for holding the unloaded wafers while the pitches are kept unchanged. The chuck mechanism includes moving pieces mounted to be movable in an arrangement direction of the wafers, for respectively supporting the wafers, elastic members mounted in the movable pieces to be expandible/contractible in the arrangement direction of the wafers, and a driving mechanism for expanding/contracting the elastic members. When the elastic members expand/contract by the driving mechanism, the pitches of the wafers are changed while the wafers are held. The lift mechanism includes a handler for variably moving wafer stands in the arrangement direction of the wafers, and changes the pitches while the wafers are lifted.

Pitch changing device for changing pitches of plate-like objects and

An apparatus is disclosed which can automatically load semiconductor wafers into a vertical type heat treatment furnace and unload treated semiconductor wafers out of the heat treatment furnace. The semiconductor wafer treating apparatus comprises exchange unit for exchanging the semiconductor wafers between the cassette and the wafer boat in a predetermined exchange position, transfer unit for allowing the wafer-held boat to be transported between the exchange position and a respective, vertical type heat treatment furnace and for allowing the transfer of the wafer boat to be effected between the transfer unit and the respective heat treatment furnace, and an elevator unit provided in the heat treatment furnace and adapted to receive the wafer boat from the transfer unit and to load the wafer boat into a vertically erect process tube and unload the wafer boat from the process tube.

Semiconductor wafer treating apparatus

A wafer support device including at least one support member shaped like a rotatable rod and having plural wafer support grooves formed at different pitches on the outer surface of the member in the longitudinal direction thereof. The frequencies of exchanging the support member with a new one or washing and cleaning it can be remarkably reduced and the productivity of semi-conductor wafers can be enhanced.

Wafer support device

A heat-treating apparatus includes a process tube accommodating an object to be heat-treated therein, and a plurality of independent heaters including at least three heaters arranged at both end portions and the central portion of a side wall of the process tube, so as to surround the process tube and, the heating temperatures of the individual heaters being freely adjustable. In this heat-treating apparatus, no direct heat transfer is caused between the heaters, so that the heating temperature of the heater at each end portion of the process tube can be adjusted to a high value, without entailing such an uneven temperature distribution as is caused in the case of a conventional heat-treating apparatus. Thus, uniform temperature distribution can be attained in an area covering the same range for the conventional apparatus, even though the heaters at both end portions are reduced in length.

Heat-treating apparatus

A heat-treating apparatus comprises a heat-treating furnace which include a process tube arranged so as to set its longitudinal direction vertically and having inlet and exhaust ports for a reaction gas, a heater arranged around the process tube, a capping member for capping an opening for allowing an heat-treating object to be loaded therethrough, which is formed in the lower end of the process tube, a case for covering a portion between the process tube and the capping member, and an exhaust nozzle, coupled to the the exhaust port formed in the process tube, for introducing the exhaust waste gas to the outside of the heat-treating apparatus. An exhaust nozzle is arranged in the case so as to introduce the waste gas leaking from between the process tube and the capping member to the outside of the heat-treating apparatus, thereby preventing the leaked gas from being diffused around the heat-treating apparatus.

Growing community of inventors

Sagamihara, Japan

Wataru Ohkase