Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Yoshio Ohkubo

Masao Hiramoto

Yoshiaki Sone

Susumu Hashimoto

Kiyotsugu Ishikawa

Masanori Omae

According to the invention, a viscous substance is applied to the undulated surface of a substrate to be processed, and a gravity-like force greater than that of normal gravity is applied to the viscous substance in the direction orthogonal to the principal plane of the substrate. Consequently, the viscous substance applied on the convex parts flows into the concave parts under the influence of the gravity-like force, so as to fill up the concave parts with the viscous substance. As a result, the top of the surface of the substrate is substantially flattened. To apply such gravity, the invention employs a rotor, and a substrate holder supported in part of the rotor in a rotatable manner, and by rotating the rotor at high speed, the substrate holder is automatically rotated, and the substrate mounted on the substrate holder is positioned in the direction orthogonal to the rotating plane of the rotor, so that a kind of gravity by centrifugal force may be applied to the viscous substance.

Method for processing a substrate surface and an apparatus therefor

A method for driving a solid-state image sensor in which the bias charges in a horizontal readout CCD (charge-coupled device) shift register are transferred onto vertical signal lines with the signal charges and then the signal and bias charges are transferred back into the horizontal readout CCD shift register from which are read out the signal charges (generated at the photosensor or photodiodes).

Growing community of inventors

Ibaraki, Japan

Yoshio Ohkubo