Heating – Work chamber having heating means – Having means by which work is progressed or moved mechanically
Reexamination Certificate
2001-08-13
2004-01-27
Lu, Jiping (Department: 3749)
Heating
Work chamber having heating means
Having means by which work is progressed or moved mechanically
C432S121000, C432S005000, C432S011000, C414S217000, C414S940000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06682343
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention of this application relates to a substrate processing apparatus used preferably for manufacturing display devices such as liquid crystal displays.
In manufacturing display devices such as liquid crystal displays and plasma displays, it is necessary to carry out a process onto a board-shaped material, which becomes the base of a device. This material is generally called “substrate” in this specification. In manufacturing liquid crystal displays, for example, a process to form a transparent electrode onto the front surface of a glass substrate is required.
Substrate processing apparatuses used for such a process comprise a chamber so that a substrate can be processed in a required environment. The chamber often comprises a pumping system to pump itself at a vacuum pressure or a gas-introduction system to introduce a required gas into itself. The substrate processing apparatuses often comprise a multiplicity of the chambers so that dissimilar processes can be carried out continually, or pressure can be reduced gradually from the atmosphere.
The conventional substrate processing apparatuses are classified into a couple of categories. One is called in-line type, and the other one is called cluster-tool type.
FIG. 6
schematically shows an in-line type apparatus as an example of conventional substrate processing apparatuses. The in-line type apparatus comprises a multiplicity of chambers
11
,
2
,
3
,
12
provided in a line. A conveying system that conveys a substrate
9
through the chambers
11
,
2
,
3
,
12
is provided. A gate valve
10
is provided at each boundary of the chambers
11
,
2
,
3
,
12
.
The substrate
9
is placed on a tray, which is conveyed to each chamber
11
,
2
,
3
,
12
in this order by the conveying system. One of the chambers is a load-lock chamber
11
that is opened to the outside atmosphere when the substrate
9
is conveyed in. Another one of the chambers is an unload-lock chamber
12
that is opened to the outside atmosphere when the substrate
9
is conveyed out. One of rest chambers is a process chamber
2
, i.e., chamber for process. Provided between the process chamber
2
and the load-lock chamber
11
, and between the process chamber
2
and the unload-lock chamber
12
are the buffer chambers
3
. The buffer chamber
3
is provided considering large pressure difference of the load-lock chamber
11
and the unload-lock chamber
12
from the process chamber
2
. The buffer chambers
3
moderate the difference by maintaining the intermediate pressure of the difference.
As shown in
FIG. 6
, the conveying system conveys the tray
91
on which the substrate
9
is placed, by conveying rollers
41
. The conveying rollers
41
are provided at both ends of a rotary rod, which are provided horizontally and perpendicularly to the conveying direction. The conveying system is composed of a multi-combination of the rotary rods and the couples of the conveying rollers
41
, which are arrayed along the conveying direction. As shown in
FIG. 6
, the substrate
9
is conveyed and processed posing horizontally.
On the other hand,
FIG. 7
schematically shows a cluster-tool type apparatus as another example of conventional substrate processing apparatuses. The cluster tool type apparatus has the layout where a load-lock chamber
11
and a plurality of process chambers
2
are provided around a transfer chamber
5
having a transfer robot
42
. The example shown in
FIG. 7
has two load-lock chambers
11
. Gate valves
10
are provided between the transfer chamber
5
and each load-lock chamber
11
, and between each transfer chamber
5
and the process chamber
2
.
The transfer robot
42
takes a substrate
9
out of one load-lock chambers
11
and transfers it to each process chamber
2
in order. After the whole processes are finished, the transfer robot
42
returns the substrate
9
to the one or the other load-lock chambers
11
. Though the chambers
11
in
FIG. 7
have the function as an unload-lock chamber, the name “load-lock chamber” is still used.
The transfer robot
42
comprises a multi-jointed arm on top of which the substrate
9
is aboard. The transfer robot
42
transfers the substrate
9
by expansion-contraction, rotation and up-and-down motion of the arm. The substrate
9
keeps posing horizontally during transferring and during processes in process chambers
2
.
Substrate-size enlargement is prominent tendency in the above-described substrate processing apparatuses. For example, not only as computer displays, but also liquid crystal displays and plasma displays are supposed to be made practical as on-the-wall television displays in the near future. Display area in the on-the-wall television displays is wider than that of the computer displays. Therefore, the substrates are enlarged as well. Besides, there is common tendency to produce a number of products from one substrate for improving productivity or reducing manufacturing cost. This is also bringing the enlargement of substrates.
With the substrate enlargement tendency at the background, the conventional substrate apparatuses bear, or will bear, following problems. First, in both of the in-line type and the cluster-tool type, a substrate keeps posing horizontally during conveying (or transferring) and processing. Therefore, when the substrate is enlarged, horizontal occupation area of each chamber is inevitably enlarged as well. As a result, the whole occupation area of the apparatus must be enlarged as well.
In the in-line type apparatus shown in
FIG. 6
, when each chamber
11
,
2
,
3
,
12
is enlarged, the line length of the apparatus must be enlarged. In the manufacture of family-use on-the-wall television displays, it is supposedly required to process a substrate of about 1×1.2 meter size. The in-line type apparatus that processes the substrate of this size would have the line-length of ten and several meters.
In the cluster-tool type apparatus shown in
FIG. 7
, the substrate enlargement directly brings the occupation area enlargement of each chamber, leading to increase of the whole occupation area of the apparatus. What is most serious in the cluster type is enlargement of the transfer chamber
5
. As understood from
FIG. 7
, though the rotation axis of the transfer robot
42
is on the center of the transfer chamber
5
, the substrate
9
is rotated apart from the center of the transfer chamber
5
, because the substrate
9
is aboard on the top of the arm. Therefore, radius of the horizontal circular space necessary for the substrate rotation, hereinafter called “required space radius”, is more than twice of side length of the substrate. Therefore, when the substrate
9
is enlarged, the required space radius is doubled, enlarging the transfer chamber
5
more. For example, when the described substrate of 1×1.2 meter size is processed, the required space radius easily exceeds 2 meters.
The transfer chamber
5
often needs to be pumped by a pumping system. When the transfer chamber
5
is enlarged, there arise problems that longer time is necessary for pumping at a required pressure, and higher cost is necessary for a high-performance pumping system
1
. Besides, such the transfer chamber
5
is essentially unnecessary for the substrate process. This is not preferable design that such the unnecessary member occupies large space in the apparatus.
The second problem brought from the substrate enlargement at the background, is a bending of substrates. In display devices such as liquid crystal displays, to make a device thinner is great demand of the market as well as to make display area wider. From this demand, substrates do not tend to be thicker, rather tend to be thinner, nevertheless they are being enlarged. For example, thickness of the described substrate of 1×1.2 meter size is just about 0.7 mm.
When such a thin substrate is conveyed (or transferred) and processed posing horizontally, the problem that the substrate bends from its weight arises. In the in-line type apparatus, for example, the substrate
Anelva Corporation
Kanesaka & Takeuchi
Lu Jiping
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-3242277