Refrigeration – Processes – Fluid external of refrigeration producing cycle
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-22
2001-04-17
Ford, John K. (Department: 3743)
Refrigeration
Processes
Fluid external of refrigeration producing cycle
C062S185000, C062S434000, C062S435000, C165S263000, C165S264000, C165S259000, C165S080400, C165S080500, C165S206000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06216475
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and device for cooling an object to be processed to a target temperature.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, in the processing steps for, e.g., a semiconductor substrate, a glass substrate, or the like, a series of processes in which a circuit pattern or the like is reduced and transferred to a photoresist on the substrate by using a photolithography technique, and the resultant photoresist is developed are performed. In such processes, the substrate is washed and then heated to completely remove moisture from the substrate surface. After the heating, the heated substrate is quickly cooled to an atmospheric temperature to shorten the manufacturing time. As a cooling device for this purpose, a device disclosed in Japanese Examined Utility Model Publication No. 6-2262 is known.
In conventional cooling device, as indicated by a curve a in
FIG. 12
, even if control is performed using a coolant kept at a target temperature to cool the substrate having a high temperature K
1
to a target temperature K
2
, a considerably long time (T
3
) is disadvantageously required to cool the substrate to the target temperature after the temperature of the substrate is close to the target temperature K
2
. In
FIG. 12
, the ordinate indicates the temperature (° C.) of the substrate, and the abscissa indicates a time (second). In an example, the temperature K
1
is about 130° C., the temperature K
2
is about 23° C., and the time T
3
is about 60 seconds.
In addition, in the photolithography step described above, the cooling step must be performed for one substrate several times. For this reason, in order to increase a throughput, one important problem is to shorten a time for the cooling process.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention, there is provided a processing method and a processing device capable of shortening a time required to cool an object to be processed to a target temperature when the temperature of the object is to be set a predetermined temperature.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3525098 (1970-08-01), Vox
patent: 3735805 (1973-05-01), Stillhard
patent: 5601141 (1997-02-01), Gordon
patent: 5941083 (1999-08-01), Sada et al.
patent: 6-2262 (1994-01-01), None
Hirose Osamu
Sada Tetsuya
Tateyama Kiyohisa
Ford John K.
Oblon & Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt P.C.
Tokyo Electron Limited
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