The present invention relates to a packing for a plating jig used for plating processing of a substrate and a plating jig using the same.
In general, a plating jig used for an electroplating method includes a substrate holder for holding a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer so as to seal portions in contact with conductive members in a peripheral edge portion and so as to be detachable in a state of exposing a surface to be plated on a front surface or both of front and back surfaces of the substrate, plating the surface to be plated of the substrate by immersing the substrate holder in a plating solution together with the substrate.
As described above, when the substrate holder is immersed in the plating solution together with the substrate, a packing as a seal member is provided in a ring shape along an inner and outer circumferences of the substrate holder to seal an area where the conductive members are provided so that conductive members for applying power to the substrate and portions of the substrate surface in contact with the conductive members are protected from the plating solution.
As such packing, an endless elastic member which is molded in a ring shape, namely, a so-called O-ring is generally used as disclosed in the following respective Patent Literatures. In a jig disclosed in Patent Literature 1, O-rings are arranged on a back surface of a substrate pressing portion of a substrate holder in double concentric circles, which are provided so as to be pressed onto the surface of the substrate and an upper surface of a substrate support portion when the substrate is sandwiched between the substrate pressing portion and the support portion. In a jig disclosed in Patent Literature 2, O-rings are respectively arranged on a back surface of a substrate pressing portion of a substrate holder and an upper surface of a substrate support portion, which are provided so as to be pressed onto the surface of the substrate and the back surface of the substrate pressing portion when the substrate is sandwiched between the substrate pressing portion and the support portion. As described above, these double-arranged O-rings are pressed onto the surface of the substrate and the upper surface of the substrate support portion or pressed onto the surface of the substrate and the back surface of the substrate pressing portion, thereby sealing the area sandwiched between the inside ring and the outside ring from the infiltration of the plating solution. As a result, the portion in contact with the conductive members in the peripheral edge portion on the surface of the substrate and the portion where the conductive members are provided in the substrate support portion are protected from the plating solution.
Incidentally, when the above molded O-ring is used as the seal member, there are the following problems. That is, sizes of inner and outer circumferences of the substrate holder vary in accordance with various sizes and shapes of substrates to be plated, and there is a problem of cost increase by molding the O-rings so as to correspond to jigs having different sizes and shapes. Furthermore, there are many compositions in plating chemicals and the chemical resistance of the O-ring differs according to the compositions, therefore, it may be difficult to address the problem by the O-ring of only one kind.
Accordingly, it is possible to consider that an elastic member having ends whose manufacturing cost is low with a variety of kinds is used instead of using the endless O-ring as the seal member, and that both ends of such member are connected to thereby make an endless seal member like the O-ring.
However, the substrate plating jig fixes the substrate pressing portion to the substrate support portion in the pressed state at the time of sandwiching the substrate, and releases the pressed state at the time of attaching and detaching the plating substrate, therefore, the pressing and the releasing of pressing are repeated at a connection portion in end portions of the seal member every time. There is a risk that the sealing effect is reduced due to the occurrence of a gap or a level difference at a joint in the connection portion if the fixing is not performed suitably at connected end portions.
In view of the above, an object of the present invention is to provide a packing for a substrate plating jig and a substrate plating jig using the same capable of obtaining the sealing effect equivalent to the related-art O-ring by overcoming the above weaknesses of the related-art packing for the substrate plating jig and the substrate plating jig using the same, having advantages in terms of cost as compared with the O-ring, capable of supporting substrate jigs with various sizes and shapes and capable of being replaced suitably in accordance with compositions of plating chemicals.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a packing for a substrate plating jig attached to a plating jig for sealing conductive members for supplying power to a substrate and portions of the substrate surface in contact with the conductive members from a plating solution, which includes a packing main body formed from a long elastic member having ends and a connecting member which links connection ends of both end portions of the packing main body to each other for allowing the packing main body to be an endless shape, in which the connecting member includes an shaft portion and plural hooks provided to protrude at a prescribed angle to both sides or one side of the shaft portion, and, when both connection ends of the packing main body are linked, the connecting member is internally provided so as to extend inside the packing main body in both directions from the connection ends within a prescribed range over a connecting point where the connection ends are linked.
Also according to the embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a substrate plating jig including a substrate holder having a substrate housing portion on an upper surface, a substrate pressing portion having an opening in which a surface to be plated of a substrate is exposed and sandwiching the substrate with the substrate holder to hold the substrate, and a fixing means for fixing the substrate pressing portion to the substrate holder in a pressed state, in which the packing is provided to be inserted in a groove portion provided in a recessed manner on a back surface of the substrate pressing portion so that a part thereof is exposed from the groove portion, and the part of the packing exposed from the groove portion is pressed onto the substrate surface and the upper surface of the substrate holder (or the back surface of the substrate pressing portion) by fixing the substrate pressing portion to a substrate support portion in the pressed state to thereby seal a peripheral edge portion of the substrate and a portion where conductive members are provided around the substrate housing portion from a plating solution.
In the packing for the substrate plating jig according to the present invention, both connection ends of the packing main body having ends are linked by the connecting member to allow the packing main body to be an endless shape, therefore, the length of the packing main body can be suitably adjusted, and the endless shaped packing corresponding to the size and shape of a substrate to be plated as well as the size and shape of a substrate pressing portion which holds the substrate can be formed.
The packing for the substrate plating jig according to the present invention can use the elastic member manufactured by extrusion molding, which differs from a molded O-ring, therefore, manufacturing cost is low.
Furthermore, existing string-shaped or tube-shaped members having ends which can be used as materials for the packing for the substrate plating jig according to the present invention have a variety of kinds of materials with chemical resistances, therefore, a member with a preferable chemical resistance can be suitably selected in accordance with the composition of the plating solution, and further, there are also many types of elastic forces, therefore, a member with a preferable elastic force can be selected so as to correspond to the plating jig.
The plating jig using the packing for the substrate plating jig according to the present invention can protect the peripheral edge portion of the substrate and the portion where conductive members are provided around the substrate housing portion from the plating solution by the sealing effect which is equivalent to that by the related-art O-ring as the packing.
In the packings provided in upper and lower two layers in the plating jig using the packing for substrate plating jig according to the present invention, packings having different kinds of materials can be suitably selected for the upper layer and the lower layer, thereby realizing the elastic strength in which a higher sealing effect can be obtained or realizing the chemical resistance corresponding to the composition of the plating solution.
Hereinafter, embodiments of a packing for a plating jig and a plating jig using the same according to the present invention will be specifically explained with reference to the drawings. The present invention is not limited to these embodiments at all.
The packing according to the present invention includes a packing main body 1 formed from a long elastic material having ends formed in a tube shape or a string shape and a connecting member 2 for linking both end portions (hereinafter referred to as “connection ends”) of the packing main body 1. The packing main body 1 is preferably manufactured by extrusion molding which is advantageous in terms of manufacturing cost, however, the manufacturing method is not limited to this. The packing main body 1 can be used as a seal member having an endless ring shape, a square shape or other shapes by connecting and fixing both connection ends to each other by the connecting member 2. As the packing main body 1 is originally one member having ends as described above, the size of the packing in a circumferential direction formed by linking both connection ends can be arbitrarily set by cutting the member to have a suitable length.
An existing elastic material having ends is preferably used as the packing main body 1, and specifically, a tube-shaped packing having a hollow portion thereinside or a string-shaped packing not having a hollow portion thereinside can be used. The tube-shaped packing having the hollow portion thereinside is preferably used due to easiness in attaching the connecting member 2. In the case of the tube-shaped packing, a cross-sectional shape thereof is preferably a circle shape. In the case of the string-shaped packing, a cross-sectional shape thereof is not limited to the circle shape but may be an elliptical shape or a polygonal shape such as a rectangular shape.
The material of the packing main body 1 can be appropriately changed according to compositions of plating chemicals, and specifically, synthetic rubbers such as nitrile rubber, silicone rubber, acrylic rubber, styrene-butadiene rubber, chloroprene rubber, fluororubber, ethylene-propylene rubber in addition to natural rubber, polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon (registered trademark)) rubber, vinyl chloride resin and so on can be suitably used.
In the case where the packing main body 1 is formed in the tube shape as in the embodiment of
On the other hand, when the packing main body 1 is formed in the string shape not having the hollow portion 12, the connecting member 2 is completely embedded inside the packing main body 1. That is, the connecting member 2 is put into and inserted from the connection end 11 along the shaft axis of the packing main body 1, and the connecting member 2 itself sticks in the inside of the packing main body 1. Then, the hooks 22 protruding from the shaft portion 21 at a prescribed angle also sticks inside the packing main body 1, therefore, the resistance to the direction in which the connecting member 2 is pulled out from the packing main body 1 is generated, and both connection ends 11 of the packing main body 1 are fixed in the abutting state.
Next, a procedure of connecting and fixing the connection ends 11 of the packing main body 1 by the connecting member 2 according to the present invention will be explained with reference to
The cross-sectional shape of the hollow portion 12 is returned to the original perfect circle shape due to elastic deformation by releasing the pressing in the portion near connection end 11 from upper and lower directions when approximately the half of the length of the shaft portion 21 is inserted, therefore, the hook 22 is positively locked in the inner wall 13. In this state, approximately the half of the shaft portion 21 of the connecting member 2 is inserted from one connection end 11 into the hollow portion 12, and the remaining half is exposed to the outside from the connection end 11 on the side where the shaft portion 21 is inserted (
Next, the end portion 211 side of the connecting member 2 exposed from the connection end 11 to the outside is inserted into the hollow portion 12 from the other connection end 11 side of the packing main body 1. Then, the shaft portion 21 is further inserted so that the part of the hook 22 is further inserted into the hollow portion 12. Lastly, the part of the hook 22 is further inserted to a position where connection end surfaces of both connection ends 11 abut on each other to allow the remaining hook 22 to be locked in the inner wall 13, thereby completing the connection and fixing the connection ends 11 (
A method of connecting the connection ends 11 of the string-shaped packing main body 1 not having the hollow portion basically follows the same procedure as the tube-shaped backing main body 1. However, the string-shaped packing differs from the tube-shaped one and does not have the hollow portion 12 to which the shaft portion 21 and the hooks 22 can be inserted, therefore, the shaft portion 21 and the hooks 22 are sticked into the packing main body 1 from end surfaces of the connection ends 11.
Next, an embodiment of a plating jig using the packing according to the present invention will be explained. The plating jig capable of using the packing according to the present invention is not limited to a type of the jig performing plating processing only to one side of the substrate which will be explained below, but can be widely used for other general substrate plating jigs including a type of a jig performing plating processing to both front and back surfaces of the substrate at the same time.
As shown in
As shown in the drawing, the substrate holder 4 includes a main body portion 41 formed in an approximately square shape, an arm portion 42 extending upward from an upper end of the main body portion 41 and a hanger portion 43 attached to an upper end of the arm portion 42 in a horizontal state. A housing portion 411 for housing the substrate is provided in the center of the main body portion 41, and four first conductive members 412 to which conductors communicating with an external electrode are connected are formed in an area around the housing portion 411 which is sealed by the later-described packing 1 of the substrate pressing portion 5.
The hanger portion 43 is formed to protrude right and left to be larger than a width of the main body portion 41 so that both end portions thereof are hooked on a wall surface of a plating bath, and an external electrode terminal is provided at a part thereof. The conductors communicating with the first conductor member 412 from the hanger portion 43 through the arm portion 42 and the main body portion 41 are connected to the external electrode terminal. As a method of conduct electricity to the substrate, a common method can be appropriately adopted, not limited to the method of the plating jig according to the present invention.
The substrate pressing portion 5 includes a frame portion 51 having a square opening 53 in which a surface to be plated in the substrate is exposed and an attaching portion 52 extending from the frame portion 51 to the substrate holder 4 side. The frame portion 51 is formed so that an inner dimension (a dimension of the opening) of the frame portion 51 is smaller than an outer dimension of the substrate and an outer dimension of the frame portion 51 is larger than the outer dimension of the substrate for covering a peripheral edge portion of the substrate when holding the substrate. The above substrate pressing portion 5 is attached so as to rotate freely with respect to a hinge portion 44 of the substrate holder 4 at the attaching portion 52. When the substrate pressing portion 5 is closed and pressed onto the substrate holder 4, the substrate can be sandwiched to be held.
As shown in the drawing, a second conductive member 7 is provided over the entire circumference on a back surface of the frame portion 51. The packing according to the present invention is doubly provided along inner and outer circumferences of the frame portion 51 on both sides of the second conductive member 7. These packing 1a and packing 1b are provided to be inserted into a groove portion 511 provided in a recessed manner on the back surface of the frame portion 51 so that parts thereof are exposed from the groove portion 511. When the substrate pressing portion 5 is closed to sandwich the substrate, the parts of the packing 1a, 1b are pressed onto the substrate surface and the upper surface of the main body portion 41. Although the packing is provided on the substrate pressing portion 5 side in the embodiment, the packing 1b provided on the outer side of the second conductive member 7 may be provided on the upper surface of the main body portion 41 of the substrate holder 4, not on the substrate pressing portion 5.
As the substrate pressing portion 5 is fixed in the pressed state, the part of the packing 1a exposed from a groove portion 511a on the back surface of the substrate pressing portion 5 is pressed onto the surface of the substrate W, and further, the part of the packing 1b exposed from a groove portion 511b is pressed onto the upper surface of the main body portion 41 of the substrate holder 4. As a result, the area sandwiched between the packing 1a and 1b, that is, the peripheral edge portion of the substrate W, portions where the first conductive members 412 are provided around the substrate housing portion 411 and the second conductive member 7 in the substrate pressing portion 5 can be positively sealed from the plating solution while holding the substrate W firmly on the substrate holder 4.
In the plating jig using the packing according to the present invention, a groove portion capable of housing the portion of the packing 1b exposed from the groove portion 511 may be provided in a recessed manner on an upper surface portion of the main body portion 41 on which the packing 1b is pressed. Further, another packing may be provided on the upper surface portion of the main body portion 41 on which the packing 1b is pressed so that the packings abut on each other to perform sealing. In this case, the packing attached to the main body portion 41 of the substrate holder 4 may be a normal O-ring as well as the packing according to the present invention.
Also in the plating jig using the packing according to the present invention, the packing attached to the substrate pressing portion 5 or the substrate holder 4 may be provided in one layer in the groove portion 511 of one place as shown in
When upper and lower layers of packings are provided, packings having the same shape and formed from different elastic materials may be used for the upper and lower layers as well as packings having different chemical resistances may be used for the upper and lower layers. For example, it is preferable that the packing having a high chemical resistance is used for the packing of the upper layer exposed to the outside. Furthermore, the packing having ends according to the present invention may be used for one of the upper and lower layers and the endless packing such as the O-ring may be used for the other thereof.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/JP2014/058975 | 3/27/2014 | WO | 00 |