Substrate processing apparatus

Details Substrate processing apparatus Substrate processing apparatus

2002-01-15

2004-09-14

Hassanzadeh, Parviz (Department: 1763)

Coating apparatus

With indicating, testing, inspecting, or measuring means

C118S052000, C118S066000, C118S719000, C156S345310, C156S345320, C156S345240, C204S298250, C204S298350, C414S935000, C414S937000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06790286

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus performing a series of processing such as thermal processing, chemical processing and the like on a thin-plate substrate (hereinafter simply referred to as “substrate”) such as a semiconductor substrate or a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display.
The present invention also relates to a substrate processing apparatus having a built-in inspection part for performing a prescribed inspection such as measurement of the thickness of a resist film, for example, on a substrate.
2. Description of the Background Art
A substrate processing apparatus is employed for performing various processing on a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer, a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display, a glass substrate for a photomask or a glass substrate for an optical disk. In a process for manufacturing a semiconductor device, for example, a substrate processing apparatus formed by unitizing the respective ones of a series of processing and integrating a plurality of processing units with each other is employed.
In the substrate processing apparatus, a transport robot transports the substrate between a heating part for heating on the substrate, a cooling part for cooling the substrate and a chemical processing part for applying chemical processing to the substrate, and the series of substrate processing are performed in prescribed order. Such a substrate processing apparatus is generally set in a clean room managed in temperature, humidity and particles.
FIG. 7
is a conceptual plan view typically showing exemplary arrangement of processing units in a conventional substrate processing apparatus. The substrate processing apparatus shown in
FIG. 7
has processing parts
110
and
120
and a transport area
130
. A rotary application unit (spin coater)
111
applying a processing liquid to substrates and a rotary developing unit (spin developer)
112
developing the selectively exposed resist on the substrates are arranged on the processing part
110
in parallel with each other.
A plurality of stages of heating units (hot plates) HP and cooling units (cooling plates) CP for heating and cooling the substrates respectively are arranged on the processing part
120
. A transport unit
131
for transferring the substrates is provided on the transport area
130
. An introduction/discharge apparatus (indexer)
140
adapted to introduce, store and discharge substrates W is arranged on single sides of the processing parts
110
and
120
and the transport area
130
.
The introduction/discharge apparatus
140
comprises a plurality of cassettes
141
storing the substrates W and a transfer robot
142
introducing and discharging the substrates W. The transfer robot
142
of the introduction/discharge apparatus
140
moves along arrow U, takes out the substrates W from the cassettes
141
for transferring the same to a transport unit
131
, and receives the substrates W having been subjected to the series of processing from the transport unit
131
for returning the same to the cassettes
141
. The transport unit
131
transports the substrates W along arrow S in the transport area
130
, introduces/discharges the substrates W into/from the aforementioned respective processing units, and transfers/receives the substrates W to/from the transfer robot
142
.
The diameters of substrates are recently increasingly enlarged for improving productivity, such that substrates having diameters exceeding 300 mm are also in the process of handling. If the substrates are increased in size, the processing parts for processing the same are also increased in size, to result in size increase of the overall substrate processing apparatus as well as the occupation area (hereinafter referred to as “footprint”) occupied by the substrate processing apparatus in plane. In consideration of management of the clean room, however, such size increase of the substrate processing apparatus is unpreferable.
This is because the environmental maintenance cost is increased when the footprint of the substrate processing apparatus is increased. Specific equipment such as a hygrothermal control unit or a filter is required in order to retain a clean internal atmosphere of the substrate processing apparatus for maintaining the clean room. Thus, the material cost and the maintenance cost for the filter or the like are disadvantageously increased. In particular, a high-priced chemical filter for coping with chemically amplified resist or the like may recently be required as a processing solution, and hence the material cost and the maintenance cost are remarkably increased if the area for using the chemical filter is increased.
Further, a single substrate processing apparatus recently contains a number of processing units for efficiently processing a large number of substrates. Therefore, a substrate processing apparatus allowing effective use of a space in the clean room is awaited. In order to suppress increase of the footprint of the substrate processing apparatus, therefore, a substrate processing apparatus formed by stacking the aforementioned processing units upward in a multistage manner is proposed and now in the process of usage. Consequently, the footprint is reduced.
For example, a conventional substrate processing apparatus formed by vertically arranging all of an introduction/discharge apparatus and respective processing units is proposed. Further, another conventional substrate processing apparatus formed by stacking respective processing units in a processing part is proposed.
In such a substrate processing apparatus formed by stacking respective processing units in a multistage manner, the height is increased in response to the degree of stacking, although increase of the footprint can be suppressed. As the height of the substrate processing apparatus is increased, the height of a transport robot transporting substrates to the respective processing parts is also increased, leading to unstable substrate transportation. Therefore, the stacking is limited.
On the other hand, as is well known, a product such as a semiconductor device or a liquid crystal display is manufactured by performing a series of processing such as cleaning, application of resist, exposure, development, etching, formation of an interlayer isolation film, thermal processing, dicing and the like on the aforementioned substrate. In order to maintain the quality of such a semiconductor product, it is important to inspect the substrate after a collective process of the aforementioned processing for confirming the quality thereof.
For example, a substrate processing apparatus such as a coater and a developer performing application of resist and development generally performs an inspection such as line width measurement of a pattern on the substrate in the final step of development. At this time, the substrate to be inspected is temporarily discharged from the substrate processing apparatus and introduced into a dedicated inspection apparatus to be inspected therein. The result of the inspection is fed back to the substrate processing apparatus, which in turn adjusts various processing conditions.
In the aforementioned conventional method, however, the substrate to be inspected is temporarily discharged from the substrate processing apparatus and introduced into the inspection apparatus provided on another position to be subjected to the inspection, and hence it takes time to complete the inspection. Even if a defective substrate is caused due to a problem in processing conditions, a long time is required to prove the defect by the inspection and substrate processing progresses in bulk under erroneous processing conditions before the result of the inspection is fed back. In this case, it follows that defective substrates are caused in bulk. In particular, the unit cost for the recent substrates of &phgr;300 m is so high that significant loss results when defective substrates are caused in bulk.
Therefore, the assignee of the present invention has p

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