Tokyo Electron Limited

Yo Abe

Kiichi Takahashi

Junya Sato

Yoshinobu Motodate

Mitsuru Obara

Takahiro Abe

When a substrate is transferred by a holding arm to a multiple tier wafer boat, contact between the holding arm and the substrate is prevented. When the wafer boat is not subjected to a thermal effect, a normal height position of a ring member is obtained by relatively elevating and lowering a transfer base member with respect to the wafer boat. Before a wafer, which is not yet thermally processed, is transferred to the wafer boat, a height position of the corresponding ring member is obtained. By comparing a difference between the normal height position of the ring member and the height position of the ring member before the wafer is transported, with a threshold value, whether to transfer the wafer by the wafer transfer mechanism to the wafer boat can be judged.

Thermal processing apparatus, thermal processing method, and storage medium

A substrate transfer apparatusincludes a substrate transport meanshaving a transport baseand a plurality of retention arms-for retaining substrates W, an optical sensorthat is used to define a horizontal optical axis L, an elevator meansfor moving the transport baseup and down, and a height detection meansfor detecting the height of the transport baserelative to the optical axis L. In accordance with a light-reception/no-light-reception detection result fed from the optical sensorand the height of the transport base, a judgment meansof a control sectionjudges whether the postures of the retention arms-relative to the horizontal plane are normal. When the judgment meansjudges that the postures of the retention arms-relative to the horizontal plane are abnormal, the control sectionexercises control to stop the substrate transport means

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Oshu, Japan

Yo Abe