The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 20, 2007
Filed:
Jun. 02, 2004
Kazuyuki Tezuka, Nirasaki, JP;
Hiroshi Koizumi, Nirasaki, JP;
Tsuyoshi Moriya, Nirasaki, JP;
Hiroyuki Nakayama, Nirasaki, JP;
Kazuyuki Tezuka, Nirasaki, JP;
Hiroshi Koizumi, Nirasaki, JP;
Tsuyoshi Moriya, Nirasaki, JP;
Hiroyuki Nakayama, Nirasaki, JP;
Tokyo Electron Limited, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
Shock waves occurring when opening a gate valve between two vacuum chambers and peeling of particles by a viscous force taking place when a gas is supplied into a vacuum chamber are necessary to be suppressed by the apparatus and method of the invention, whereby contamination of a substrate by particles is suppressed. If one vacuum chamber is a substrate processing chamber for performing a vacuum process on the substrate and the other chamber is a transfer chamber having a substrate transfer device therein, the gate valve is opened when inner pressures of both the vacuum chambers are less than 66.5 Pa and higher one thereof is less than twice a lower one thereof. Preferably, a purge gas for peeling of particles is supplied, before supplying the purge gas for pressure control, into the substrate processing chamber with a flow rate greater than that of the purge gas for pressure control.