Substrate processing method and substrate processing apparatus

Details Substrate processing method and substrate processing apparatus Substrate processing method and substrate processing apparatus

2000-12-18

2002-11-26

Rutledge, D (Department: 2851)

Photography

Fluid-treating apparatus

Fluid application to one side only of photographic medium

C118S052000, C424S240100

Reexamination Certificate

active

06485203

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a substrate processing method and a substrate processing apparatus for performing, for example, a coating processing of a resist solution, a developing processing and the like on a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer, a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a lithography of a fabricating process of a semiconductor device, a resist is coated onto the surface of a semiconductor wafer (hereinafter referred to as a “wafer”), and thus coated resist is subjected to an exposure processing in accordance with a predetermined pattern and further to a developing processing to form a resist film of the predetermined pattern. A series of processings like this is performed by a system in which an exposure unit is connected to a coating/developing unit.
FIG. 10
is a plane view showing a conventional example of these units, in which a cassette C housing 25 substrates, for example, semiconductor wafers W is carried into a cassette stage
1
of a cassette station A
1
. A process station A
2
is connected to the cassette station A
1
, and further, a not-shown exposure unit is connected to the process station A
2
through an interface station A
3
.
The wafer W inside the cassette C on the cassette stage
1
is removed by a delivery arm
11
and sent to a coating unit
13
through a delivery section in a shelf unit
12
to be coated with the resist. Subsequently, the wafer W is transferred by the route of a wafer transfer means
14
→a delivery section in a shelf unit
15
→the interface station A
3
→the exposure unit to be exposed. The exposed wafer W is transferred to the process station A
2
by the reverse route, developed in a not-shown developing unit provided in the lower tier of the coating unit
13
, and then transferred by the route of the wafer transfer means
14
→the delivery section in the shelf unit
12
→the cassette C.
It should be noted that each shelf of the shelf unit
12
,
15
is structured as a heating section, a cooling section, the delivery section of the wafer W, a hydrophobic section and so on, and before a resist coating and the developing processing, a heating processing and a cooling processing are performed in this order in the shelf unit
12
,
15
in order to perform the resist coating or the like at a predetermined temperature. Incidentally, the delivery arm for delivering the wafer W between the process station A
2
and the exposure unit is shown as number
16
.
Further, a process area which comprises the coating unit
13
and the developing unit and a transfer area in which the wafer transfer means
14
is arranged are partitioned off in the process station A
2
, and an atmosphere of a clean room is taken in as well as the air the temperature and the humidity of which are adjusted in a predetermined manner is flowed in the process area, whereby the area have, so to speak, the atmosphere which is adjusted with high accuracy.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Note that the present inventors find out that a film thickness of a resist and a developing line width are highly dependent on a processing temperature, as shown with a temperature dependency of the film thickness of the resist in FIG.
11
and with a temperature dependency of the developing line width in
FIG. 12
, and if the processing temperature changes 2° C., the film thickness of the resist and the developing line width change significantly.
In a coating/developing unit, a wafer W undergoes a predetermined processing in, for example, hydrophobic sections in shelf units
12
,
15
, then cooled to a predetermined temperature in a cooling section, and coated with a resist in a coating unit
13
, in which the wafer W is transferred from the cooling section to the coating unit
13
via a transfer area the temperature and the humidity of which are not adjusted. Therefore, even if the temperature of the wafer W is adjusted in the cooling section, it is influenced by the temperature of the transfer area during the subsequent transfer, and the temperature of the wafer W in coating the resist differs from that of the scheduled in the end, which may results in a change in the film thickness of the resist and a worse uniformity of the film thickness.
In order to prevent this, it may be possible to think of making an entire process station A
2
to be an atmosphere adjusted with high accuracy in which the temperature and the humidity are adjusted, which causes a disadvantage that an increasing area for adjusting its atmosphere costs more.
An object of the present invention is to provide a substrate processing method and a substrate processing apparatus which can improve the uniformity of the processing by performing a coating processing of a coating solution in a state with the temperature and the humidity of a substrate adjusted with high accuracy.
To attain this object, the substrate processing method of the present invention for transferring the substrate cooled by the cooling plate to a coating processing section and for coating the processing solution onto the substrate in the coating processing section, comprising the steps of: detecting the temperature of an area to where the substrate is transferred, and adjusting the temperature of the substrate cooled by the cooling plate based on the detected temperature so that the temperature of the substrate transferred to the coating processing section is made to be the same with a supplying temperature of the processing solution.
The substrate processing method like this is, in concrete, performed by the substrate processing apparatus having a cassette station which includes a mounting portion for mounting a substrate cassette housing a plurality of substrates and a delivery device for delivering the substrate to the substrate cassette mounted on the mounting portion, and the process station connected to the cassette station for processing the substrate transferred by the delivery device, and the process station comprises: the cooling plate for cooling the substrate, the coating processing section for coating a processing solution onto the substrate, a substrate transfer device for transferring the substrate cooled by the cooling plate to the coating processing section, a temperature/humidity detector for detecting the temperature of the area to where the substrate is transferred by the substrate transfer device, and a control section for adjusting the temperature of the cooling plate so that the temperature of the substrate when transferred to the coating processing section becomes the same with the coating temperature of the processing solution based on a detected value by the temperature/humidity detector.
In the structure like this, the temperature of the area to where the wafer is transferred is detected and the temperature of the substrate which is cooled by the cooling plate is adjusted accordingly based on a detected value so that the temperature of the substrate when transferred to the coating processing section becomes the coating temperature of the processing solution, whereby, the coating processing can be performed while maintaining the temperature of the substrate with high accuracy, which makes it possible that a formation of an uneven processing due to the temperature change can be prevented and a uniformity of the coating processing can be improved.
Further, the substrate processing method of the present invention for transferring the substrate cooled by the cooling plate to a coating processing section and for coating the processing solution onto the substrate in the coating processing section, further comprising the step of: transferring the substrate from the cooling plate to the coating processing section while supplying the gas with its temperature adjusted onto the surface to be processed of the substrate.
The substrate processing method like this is performed by the substrate processing apparatus having the cassette station which includes the mounting portion for mounting the substrate casset

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