Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co., Ltd.

Yasufumi Koyama

Kenji Hashinoki

Akira Kuwabara

Takaharu Yamada

Satoshi Yamamoto

Yoshiteru Fukutomi

Kenji Kamei

Eiichi Tamaki

Kazuya Akiyama

Toru Kitamoto

Masayoshi Shiga

Masayuki Itaba

Toru Azuma

Yoshiji Oka

Toshiaki Dainin

Toshiya Yuge

A substrate treating apparatus is capable of promptly heating substrates after exposure, and avoiding an adverse thermal influence on an exposing apparatus. A developing block includes heating modules for heating exposed substrates. An interface block is interposed between the heating modules and the exposing apparatus to isolate the exposing apparatus from the thermal influence of the heating modules. The interface block has a transport mechanism for transporting the substrates to the heating modules, whereby the exposed substrates are promptly transferred to the heating modules.

Substrate treating apparatus

A substrate processing apparatus for performing a resist coating process and a development process includes an inspection block for making an inspection on a substrate having undergone the development process. The inspection block has an inspection unit for making a predetermined inspection and a transport robot for transferring a substrate to and from the inspection unit. When a substrate to be inspected is transported to the inspection block, the transport robot transports the substrate to the inspection unit. When a substrate not to be inspected is transported to the inspection block, the transport robot transports the substrate directly to the outlet of the inspection block. At this time, a substrate not to be inspected is allowed to pass a preceding substrate to be inspected, at the inspection block. Thus provided is a substrate processing apparatus capable of improving the transport efficiency, to thereby achieve a higher throughput.

Substrate processing apparatus for performing photolithography

A cell controller controls the operation of a transport robot to keep a substrate belonging to a succeeding lot carried into a heating part in the fourth transport cycle from being transported out of the heating part in the next or fifth transport cycle, thereby preventing interference between the transport of substrates belonging to the succeeding lot and the transport of substrates belonging to a preceding lot. If interference is likely to occur between the transport of the substrates belonging to the succeeding lot and the transport of the substrates belonging to the preceding lot, the cell controller causes the substrates belonging to the succeeding lot not to be transported but to remain in processing units. This allows the transport of the substrates belonging to the succeeding lot in consideration of only the next transport cycle.

Substrate processing apparatus

A substrate processing apparatus includes a plurality of cells each including a predetermined processing unit, a transport mechanism, and a cell controller. The cell controller independently controls operations in each cell in accordance with transport setting and processing condition setting for each cell described in recipe data determined for each substrate unit to be processed. Because the processing and transport are performed independently of the operations of adjacent cells, substrates belonging to different substrate units are received through a feed inlet or the sane substrate inlet, are processed while being present in the same cell, and are transported to a feed outlet and a return outlet which are different substrate outlets. This allows the presence of different process flows in parallel.

Substrate processing apparatus and method of transporting substrates and method of processing substrates in substrate processing apparatus

When the processing temperature in a heater should be changed between lots, for example, a foremost substrate in a subsequent lot is transported to a position close to the heater such as a substrate holding part, and is held in standby thereat until adjustment of a processing environment (namely, change of the processing temperature) is completed. The substrate held in standby is thereafter transported to the heater. As compared with the case in which substrates are placed in standby in an indexer, substrates can be fed faster to the heater after change of the processing temperature, thereby suppressing throughput reduction.

Substrate processing apparatus and substrate processing method

A substrate processing apparatus includes a plurality of cells each including a predetermined processing unit, a transport mechanism, and a cell controller. The cell controller independently controls operations in each cell in accordance with transport setting and processing condition setting for each cell described in recipe data determined for each substrate unit to be processed. Because the processing and transport are performed independently of the operations of adjacent cells, substrates belonging to different substrate units are received through a feed inlet or the same substrate inlet, are processed while being present in the same cell, and are transported to a feed outlet and a return outlet which are different substrate outlets. This allows the presence of different process flows in parallel.

Method of transporting and processing substrates in substrate processing apparatus

Provided is a substrate processing apparatus that can reduce power consumption, while maintaining throughput. In addition to a normal mode in which all units are activated, the apparatus is provided with an energy saving mode that is selectable. When the energy saving mode is selected, only essential units that are requisites for a substrate processing are activated and used in the substrate processing. If it is necessary to increase process efficiency, any additional unit may be activated and used in the processing. During standby, only an essential unit can be activated and the rest is halted, or alternatively, all units may be halted. The transition to the energy saving mode can occur when the standby state continues for a predetermined period of time after the normal mode is selected.

Substrate processing apparatus, operation method thereof and program

A substrate treating apparatus has an antireflection film forming block, a resist film forming block and a developing block arranged in juxtaposition, each of these blocks including treating modules and a single main transport mechanism. The main transport mechanism transports substrates within each block, and transfers the substrates between the blocks through inlet substrate rests and outlet substrate rests provided as separate components. This construction realizes improved throughput of the substrate treating apparatus.

A substrate transport method includes the steps of depositing a first substrate in a buffer section having a plurality of storages for temporarily storing substrates to transfer the substrates between a processing unit for performing various substrate treatments before and after an exposing process and an exposure unit for performing the exposing process, by actuating a first substrate transport device for transporting the substrates between the buffer section and the exposure unit and/or a second substrate transport device for transporting the substrates between the buffer section and the exposure unit; and depositing a second substrate on one of the storages next but at least one to a storage on which the first substrate is stored.

Substrate transport method and apparatus

A substrate detecting apparatus includes: a light sensor unit having a light-emission element and a light-receiving element arranged to face each other across the cassette, and a vertical driving device for moving at least one of the light sensor unit and the cassette relative to each other in a vertical direction a substrate position detecter is also provided for detecting a vertical positional range of each substrate held in the cassette, based on a wave form of an output signal generated by the light sensor unit as the at least one of the light sensor unit and the cassette is vertically moving relative to each other. A substrate conveying apparatus includes a clearance measurement device for measuring a vertical clearance between a pair of substrates held in the cassette, and an arm driving device for inserting the conveyance arm between the pair of substrates while lifting up the conveyance arm along a slant locus when the vertical clearance is less than a predetermined critical value.

Apparatus and method for detecting and conveying substrates in cassette

An A-phase pulse (S.sub.A) and a B-phase pulse (S.sub.B) are transmitted from a laser interferometic measuring device to a conversion device (5). When the distance-to-be-measured (l) is increasing, a conversion coefficient (D.sub.R) is added to or subtracted from an initial value in an arithmetic calculator (53) at the rising edge and the trailing edge of the pulses (S.sub.A, S.sub.B). The conversion coefficient has a digital value of M-digits and represents a reference distance .lambda./N, where .lambda. is the wavelength of a laser beam (LB.sub.1, LB.sub.2) employed in the laser measuring machine and M and N are positive integers. A predetermined unit distance in the metric system corresponds to a unit number in the (M+1)-th digit. A distance pulse signal (S.sub.L) is generated in response to a carry signal and a borrow signal from the arithmetic calculator, and is used in expressing a change of the distance in the metric system.

Conversion device for laser interferometic measuring apparatus

An AOD driver (27) generates a driving signal of an AOD (11), whose frequency varies in response to a sweep signal and whose amplitude varies in accordance with an amplitude control signal. In an initial stage, a constant signal level is stored in a memory (29) and is supplied to the AOD driver. A laser beam is deflected by the AOD and the light intensity thereof is detected by a photo-sensor (14). A signal representing the light intensity is given to a CPU (33) and a corrected amplitude control signal is generated, which is stored in the memory in place of the original amplitude control signal to control the AOD driver.

Method of and apparatus for controlling deflection of optical beams

An image data processing apparatus for generating a dot data, which is converted from a runlength data, to control multi-channel exposure beams which record image patterns through scanning, having a converter for generating a dot signal which corresponds to a length of an exposure portion designated by the runlength data, and a memory block for forming the dot data by storing the dot signals in M scanning lines, where M is the number of the exposure beams. Then it generates the dot data which corresponds to the number of the exposure beams.

Apparatus for expanding and formatting runlength data for multiple

An apparatus for recording a binary image of a printed circuit pattern on photosensitive material. First and second rows of recording spots scan the photosensitive material. The second row is shifted by a length corresponding to approximately half the diameter of the recording spots. Each of the recording spots covers an area equal to approximaqtely four pixels. Whether a pixel is to be exposed is determined on the basis of a logical sum or product of data corresponding to four adjacent pixels.

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Kyoto, Japan

Yasufumi Koyama