Photography – Fluid-treating apparatus – Fluid application to one side only of photographic medium
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-02
2002-06-11
Rutledge, D. (Department: 2851)
Photography
Fluid-treating apparatus
Fluid application to one side only of photographic medium
C029S025010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06402400
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is included in a technical field of, for example, semiconductor device fabrication.
Further, the present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus for performing, for example, coating processing or developing processing of a resist solution to a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer or a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a photoresist step in a process of semiconductor device fabrication, for example, a resist solution is applied to a front face of a semiconductor wafer (hereinafter, referred to as “wafer”) or the like to form a resist film, and a developing solution is supplied to the wafer which has been exposed in a pattern to thereby perform developing processing. In order to perform the above-described series of processing, a coating and developing processing apparatus has been conventionally used.
The coating and developing apparatus comprises various kinds of processing units such as a cooling processing unit for cooling a wafer W, a heat processing unit for heating the wafer W, a resist coating unit for coating the wafer W with a resist solution, a developing processing unit for performing developing processing for the wafer W, and the like. In order to make the whole coating and developing processing apparatus compact, a plurality of heat processing units and cooling processing units are multi-tiered to be arranged together with a transfer device on the whole, thereby attaining space saving of the coating and developing processing apparatus.
However, as the wafer W increases in diameter, all the processing units increase in size. Thus, it is necessary to arrange the processing units more compactly in order to save space.
However, when the heat processing unit increases in size, an amount of heat of the heat processing unit also increases. Accordingly, in the case where the heat processing unit is disposed near other processing units as one processing unit in the thermal processing unit group as before, there is a danger that temperature control can not be precisely performed in the other units for performing processing for the wafer at about room temperature, for example, the resist coating unit and the like. The instabilities in temperature control in these processing units result in a problem of a resist film varying in film thickness.
In the above coating and developing processing apparatus, since containers for storing processing solutions are placed outside, pipes for supplying the processing solutions to the coating unit and the developing unit are long. The solution in the pipe is drained at the time of maintenance or the like, but a resist solution and a developing solution suitable for michromachining of patterns are costly, and thus the long distance of the staying solution results in increased total cost. Meanwhile, it is necessary to precisely control an amount of the processing solution discharged from a nozzle, thereby sucking slightly the processing solution to thereby draw up the solution surface from the nozzle tip in order to prevent the solution from running from the nozzle onto the substrate after the discharge, and therefore the pressure loading of the processing solution needs to be finely adjusted. Therefore, supply control devices such as a metering pump and a suck valve are provided in the coating (developing) unit not in an external box in order not to be departed from the nozzle, but there is a problem that the supply control devices placed in each coating (developing) unit obstructs maintenance work.
Further, in the above-described coating and developing processing apparatus, since the wafer W which has been delivered to the processing station is transferred between the coating unit, the developing unit, and the shelf unit by wafer transfer means in the processing station, a great load imposed on the wafer transfer means, resulting in the present situation in which the number of the units in the processing station can not be greatly increased.
From the viewpoint of improvement in throughput, it is desirable to increase the numbers of the coating units and the developing units, and it has been also considered to add a new unit for forming an anti-reflection film prior to the application of the resist on the wafer, and the like. In this case, the number of the wafer transfer means needs to be increased in accordance with the increase in the number of the units. Moreover, in the above-described coating and developing processing apparatus, since the shelf unit is disposed near the coating unit or the developing unit, the coating unit is susceptible to heat influence from the heating section of the shelf unit. Accordingly, the temperature of the wafer W tends to change during the processing in each unit, bringing about a problem that ununiformity often happens in the processing because temperature affects on the processing. For this reason, it is desired to create a layout for improving throughput and performing processing uniformly.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a substrate processing apparatus capable of precisely performing temperature control in a processing unit for performing solution processing for a substrate.
Further, another object of the present invention is to provide a substrate processing apparatus in which a pipe for a processing solution can be shortened.
Furthermore, still another object of the present invention is to provide a substrate processing apparatus which improves in throughput by decreasing a load on substrate transfer means.
In order to solve the above problems, a substrate processing apparatus of the present invention is characterized by comprising: a first processing unit group in which first processing units each for supplying a predetermined solution onto a substrate to thereby perform solution processing are multi-tiered; a second processing unit group in which second processing units each made by allowing a heating section for performing heat processing for the substrate and a cooling section for performing cooling processing for the substrate to adjoin to each other into one body are multi-tiered; and a transfer device for transferring the substrate between the first processing unit and the second processing unit, wherein the first processing unit group and the second processing unit group are arranged adjacent to each other while the cooling section out of the heating section and the cooling section in each second unit is positioned on the first processing unit group side.
In the present invention, the first processing unit group for performing solution processing for the substrate at about room temperature and the second processing unit group including the heating sections and the cooling sections are arranged such that the cooling sections are located on the first processing unit side, thereby reducing heat influence that the first processing unit group receives from the second processing unit group to a minimum. This makes it possible to perform precisely temperature control in the first processing unit group for performing processing for the substrate at about room temperature.
Further the substrate processing apparatus is characterized in that a clean air supply section for supplying clean air to the first processing unit group is provided, the clean air supply section exhausting gas from the bottom of the first processing unit group, circulating the exhausted gas, and blasting temperature regulated gas from the top of the first processing unit group, and further a passage for circulating the gas exhausted from the bottom of the first processing unit group to the top thereof is provided to divide an area in which the first processing unit group is disposed from an area in which the second processing unit group is disposed.
With such a configuration, the passage functions as heat insulation means between the area in which the first processing unit group is disposed and the area in which the second processing unit group is dis
Okumura Kenji
Takekuma Takashi
Ueda Issei
Rader Fishman and Grauer PLLC
Rutledge D.
Tokyo Electron Limited
LandOfFree
Substrate processing apparatus does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Substrate processing apparatus, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Substrate processing apparatus will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2895120