Coating apparatus – Gas or vapor deposition – Work support
Reexamination Certificate
1997-06-20
2001-04-17
Beck, Shrive (Department: 1763)
Coating apparatus
Gas or vapor deposition
Work support
C118S719000, C118S500000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06217663
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus and a substrate processing method, and more particularly, to a semiconductor wafer processing apparatus and a semiconductor wafer processing method in a single wafer-processing manner or a small number of (particularly, two) wafers-processing manner at a time.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a processing chamber for conducting a semiconductor wafer processing in a semiconductor wafer processing apparatus which processes a single wafer or a small number of wafers at a time, in order to increase the throughput, a temperature is not usually risen or lowered for each process, and in many cases, the temperature is kept at a predetermined high value.
FIGS. 37 and 38
are perspective views for explaining a conventional semiconductor wafer processing apparatus which loads and unloads the semiconductor wafer into and from the processing chamber which is kept at a high temperature.
In the processing chamber (not shown), a plate
110
for mounting a semiconductor wafer is provided beforehand. When the processing of the semiconductor wafer
100
is conducted, the semiconductor wafer
100
is directly mounted on an arm
122
of a tweezer
120
and is transferred into the processing chamber (not shown). Then, semiconductor wafer
100
is directly mounted on a supporting claw
116
provided in a space
112
of the plate
110
to conduct the processing. After the processing is completed in the processing chamber, the tweezer
120
is inserted into the space
112
of the plate
110
from the side of a space
114
of the plate
110
to put the semiconductor wafer
100
directly onto the arm
122
of the tweezer
120
to transfer the semiconductor wafer
100
out of the processing chamber.
FIGS. 39A
,
39
B and
39
C show results of slips generated in the semiconductor wafer
100
when the semiconductor wafer
100
is processed by using such a conventional technique under a condition in which a P
−
<100> wafer having a diameter of 8 inches is used, N
2
is flowed at 10 liters per minute, the processing time is 5 minutes, the processing temperature is set at 1000° C., 1050° C. and 1100° C., respectively, and a preheating time of the tweezer is 30 seconds. The measurement was conducted under a microscope with a magnification of 50. As a result, it was found that a slip was generated especially around an outer peripheral portion of the semiconductor wafer
100
.
In the conventional technique, there is a problem that a slip is generated in the semiconductor wafer as described above.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, a major object of the present invention is to provide a substrate processing apparatus and a substrate processing method which can restrain a defect such as a slip and an nonuniformity of processing from being generated in or on a substrate.
The present inventors found out after hard study that in the conventional technique, because the semiconductor wafer
100
is directly mounted on the arm
122
of the tweezer
120
when the semiconductor wafer
100
is loaded or unloaded into or from the high-temperature processing chamber, a slip is generated in the semiconductor wafer
100
for the following reasons:
(1) When the semiconductor wafer
100
is unloaded from the high-temperature processing chamber, because the high-temperature semiconductor wafer
100
is picked up by the arm
122
of the low-temperature tweezer
120
, a portion of the semiconductor wafer
100
which is contacted with the arm
122
is locally cooled and a slip is generated.
(2) The tweezer
120
is under restrictions such as one in which the tweezer
120
needs to have an access to a wafer cassette and thus, the tweezer
120
can not support the semiconductor wafer
100
at supporting points disposed at a uniform intervals from one another. Therefore, an nonuniform weight stress of the semiconductor wafer
100
itself is generated and a slip is generated.
FIG. 40A
is a plan view for explaining a relationship of positions of the wafer transfer tweezer, the semiconductor wafer and a cassette, and
FIG. 40B
is a sectional view taken along the line X
40
—X
40
in FIG.
40
A.
A wafer supporting portion
420
of a wafer cassette
410
is located at a peripheral portion of the semiconductor wafer
100
, and in order to take the semiconductor wafer
100
out of or into the wafer cassette
410
, the tweezer
120
is required to be formed into a shape as shown in
FIG. 40A
such that the tweezer
120
can be inserted into a central portion of the wafer cassette
410
. Further, in order to reduce a contact area of the tweezer
120
with the semiconductor wafer
100
, the arm
122
of the tweezer
120
is provided with recesses
124
and
126
so that the semiconductor wafer
100
can be supported at four points (C
1
, C
2
, C
3
and C
4
). Therefore, the semiconductor wafer
100
can not be supported at uniform load only by the tweezer
120
and the self-weight of the wafer is applied to the wafer itself and as a result, a slip is generated.
(3) In a heat-up process after the semiconductor wafer
100
is loaded into the high-temperature processing chamber, temperature rise around an outer peripheral portion of the wafer is faster than the central portion of the wafer and therefore, a difference in temperature is generated over the entire surface of the semiconductor wafer
100
. As a result, a warpage or a slip is generated.
(4) In a heat-down process after the semiconductor wafer
100
is unloaded from the high-temperature processing chamber, temperature fall around an outer peripheral portion of the wafer is faster than the central portion of the wafer and therefore, a slip is generated as in the above mentioned reason (3).
As described above, in the conventional technique, a slip is generated in the semiconductor wafer
100
by a relationship between a yield shear stress, and 1) a thermal stress due to a difference in temperature within the wafer as well as 2) a self-weight stress due to an nonuniform load support of the wafer.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a substrate processing apparatus, comprising:
a processing chamber for processing a substrate;
heating means capable of heating an interior of the processing chamber;
a substrate holding member capable of holding the substrate, and capable of processing the substrate in the processing chamber in a state where the substrate holding member holds the substrate; and
a mechanism, which is capable of allowing the substrate holding member to hold the substrate and then transferring the substrate holding member holding the substrate into the processing chamber, and/or which is capable of carrying out the substrate holding member from the processing chamber in a state where the substrate holding member holds the substrate, and then separating the substrate from the substrate holding member.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a substrate processing apparatus, comprising:
a hot-wall type processing chamber for processing a substrate;
a heater capable of heating an interior of the processing chamber;
a substrate holding member capable of holding the substrate, and capable of processing the substrate in the processing chamber in a state where the substrate holding member holds the substrate; and
a mechanism, which is capable of transferring the substrate holding member, in a state where the substrate holding member holds the substrate, into the processing chamber which is heated, and/or which is capable of carrying out the substrate holding member, in a state where the substrate holding member holds the substrate, from the heated processing chamber.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a substrate processing method, comprising the steps of:
transferring a substrate holding member holding a substrate into a hot-wall type processing chamber which is kept at a predetermined temperature;
then, processing the substrate in a state where th
Ikeda Fumihide
Inokuchi Yasuhiro
Nishiwaki Michiko
Sueyoshi Mamoru
Takada Masatoshi
Beck Shrive
Hassanzadeh P.
Kokusai Electric Co. Ltd.
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