Patent Application
20130214497
This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2012-033977, filed on Feb. 20, 2012, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Exemplary embodiments described herein generally relate to a substrate rotation holding apparatus and a substrate processing apparatus.
Conventionally, a substrate processing apparatus such as a substrate cleaning apparatus has been known. The substrate cleaning apparatus performs cleaning a substrate such as a wafer while the substrate is rotating. In such the substrate processing apparatus, for example, a plurality of holding members disposed at a substrate holding section sandwiches around an outer periphery end portion of the substrate. In such a manner, the substrate holding section is rotated so as to rotate the substrate and resulting in cleaning the substrate in rotating by brush or the like.
Embodiments provide a substrate rotation holding apparatus and a substrate processing apparatus both of which can solve to suitably hold the substrate in the cleaning process.
An aspect of one embodiment, there is provided a substrate rotation holding apparatus, including a substrate holding section configured to hold a substrate by sandwiching around an outer periphery end portion of the substrate with a disk shape by a plurality of holding members, each of the holding members having a contact surface with the substrate, the contact surface being a concave curvature surface, and a rotation driving section configured to rotate the substrate holding section.
An another aspect of one embodiment, there is provided a substrate processing apparatus, including a substrate holding section configured to hold a substrate by sandwiching around an outer periphery end portion of the substrate with a disk shape by a plurality of holding members, each of the holding members having a contact surface with the substrate, the contact surface being a concave curvature surface, and a rotation driving section configured to rotate the substrate holding section.
Embodiments will be described below in detail with reference to the attached drawings mentioned above. Throughout the attached drawings, similar or same reference numerals show similar, equivalent or same components.
A substrate processing apparatus according to a first embodiment is specifically described by using
In
A constitution of the substrate processing apparatus according to the first embodiment is described by using
As shown in
The substrate rotation holding apparatus 2 includes a substrate holding section 10, a rotation driving section 20 and an open-close driving unit 30. The substrate holding section 10 configured to receive the substrate W transferred from a substrate transfer section (not shown) to send the substrate W to the substrate transfer section after the substrate W is cleaned by the cleaning apparatus 3. The rotation driving section 20 is connected to the substrate holding section 10 to rotate the substrate holding section 10 around the rotation axis 50 extended to Z-direction as the center. The open-close driving unit 30 configured to control to retain and release the substrate W by the substrate holding section 10.
The substrate holding section 10 includes a plurality of chuck pins 11 and a spin plate 12, and each of the chuck pins 11 is corresponded to a holding member 11, for example. The chuck pin is disposed on the same circumference with a rotation axis 50 as the center and an equal interval is set between the adjacent chuck pins. The chuck pins 11 are supported at an outer periphery portion of the spin plate 12 with a disk shape. The spin plate 12 is connected to the rotation driving section 20 and the chuck pins 11 and the spin plate 12 are rotated around the rotation axis 50 by the rotation driving section 20.
The magnet 64 is disposed on an upper end of the axis unit 63. As described later, the axis unit 63 is rotated around the rotation axis 51 by supplying magnetic force to the magnet 64. As shown in
A motor 65 is disposed in the pin supporting unit 62. The holding pin 61 is configured to rotate around a rotation axis 52 by driving the motor 65. The rotation axis 52 is a vertical axis extending in Z-direction as the same as the rotation axes 50 and 51. An encoder 66 is configured in the pin supporting unit 62 to detect a rotation position of the motor 65 and detects the rotation position of the holding pin 61. In this embodiment, the holding pin 61 is rotated around the rotation axis 52 by the motor 65. However, the holding member can be constituted that a worker can change the rotation position of the holding pin 61 in multi steps. Furthermore, holding pin 61 can be rotated around the rotation axis 52 by a driving approach other than the motor 65.
Back to
Furthermore, the magnet plates 31a, 31b independently shift in upper and lower directions by the magnet transfer systems 32a, 32b, respectively. Specifically, the magnet plates 31a, 31b are shifted to a set position, which is nearly the same height as the magnet 64 of the chuck pin 11, by the magnet transfer systems 32a, 32b, and are shifted to a reset position, which is an upper position being apart a predetermined distance from the magnet 64.
As described above, north-pole is configured at the outer periphery side of the magnet plates 31a, 31b.
Accordingly, when the magnet plates 31a, 31b is shifted from the reset position to the set position, south-pole of the magnet 64 in the chuck pin 11 is attracted to the magnet plates 31a, 31b.
Therefore, the holding pin 61 is shifted to a side of the rotation axis 50 than that of the rotation axis 51 so as to be set a state in which the substrate W can be retained. The state is illustrated as a position described by a real line in the
On the other hand, when the magnet plates 31a, 31b is shifted from the set position to the reset position, the magnet 64 in the chuck pin 11 is not attracted to the magnet plate 31a, 31b. Therefore, a state, in which south-pole of the chuck pin 11 in the magnet 64 is attracted to the magnet plates 31a, 31b, is released. In a state that magnetic force of the magnet plate 31a, 31b is not influenced to the chuck pin 11, the opposed force is added to the holding pin 61 to be positioned to the side of the rotation axis 50 than that of the rotation axis 51. Accordingly, holding pin 61 is shifted to the opposed side of the rotation axis 50 to the rotation axis 51 so as to not to retain the substrate W. The state is illustrated as a position described by a dotted line in the
In such a manner, the magnet plates 31a, 31b are shifted from the reset position to the set position so that the holding pin 61 in the chuck pins 11 is set to be the retention state in the substrate holding section 10. As a result, the substrate W is sandwiched by the holding pin 61 to be held. On the other hand, the magnet plates 31a, 31b are set from the set state to the reset state so that the holding pin 61 in the chuck pins 11 is set to be the release state. As a result, holding the substrate W by the chuck pin 11 is released.
Furthermore, the holding pin 61 in the chuck pins 11 positioned in a region Ra as shown in
Back to
Next, the cleaning apparatus 3 is described.
As shown in
The rotation shaft of the motor 42 is extended in Z-direction and the cleaning brush 41 rotates the vertical axis extending in Z-axis.
The cleaning nozzle 43 is assembled near the motor 42.on the holding member 44 and a supplying pipe being supplied a cleaning solution is connected to the cleaning nozzle 43. A leading edge of the cleaning nozzle 43 faces to a periphery of the cleaning brush 41 and sprays the cleaning solution to the periphery of the cleaning brush 41. In addition, pure water or chemical, for example, is used as the cleaning solution.
The brush transfer system 45 is configured to shift the holding member 44, on which the cleaning brush 41 and the cleaning nozzle 43 are assembled, in both an upper and a lower direction and a horizontal direction. In such a manner, a side of a back surface and an outer periphery end portion of the substrate W retained by the substrate rotation holding apparatus 2 can be cleaned.
In the state described above, the magnet plates 31a, 31b in the substrate holding section 10 are set to be the set position so as to hold the substrate W, subsequently, the magnet plate 31a is set to be the reset position so that the holding pin 61 in the region Ra as shown in
However, the holding pin 61 in the chuck pins 11 interrupts in cleaning the periphery of the back surface and the outer periphery end portion of the substrate W in the state. As shown in a center figure in
Furthermore, as the substrate holding section 10 is rotated in cleaning, each of the chuck pins 11 shifts to an outside of the region Ra after shifting to the region Ra in an order. As the magnet plates 31b other than the region Ra are set to be the set position, the holding pin 61 in the chuck pins 11 is set to the retention state from the release state when the holding pin 61 shift to the outside of the region R from the region R as shown in a light side figure in
The substrate W is held by chuck pin 11 in a state that the substrate W is contacted to a substrate contact unit 67 in the holding pin 61. In the holding pin 61 of the chuck pin 11 according to the first embodiment, the substrate contact unit 67 contacting to the substrate W has a concave curvature surface, as shown in
As shown in
Each of the contacting surfaces 68a-68f has a concave curvature surface to be allowed to linearly contact to the outer periphery of the substrate W with a disk shape on X-Y plane. In other words, the substrate W has approximately the same curvature as that of the contacting surfaces 68a-68f. In such a manner, the contacting surfaces 68a-68f can be linearly contacted to the outer periphery of the substrate W with the disk-shape. Moreover, the holding pin 61 has a circle shape in cross-section other than the substrate contact unit 67
The contacting surfaces 68a-68f extend in Z-direction to enable to contact with a surface of a body having a straight fashion 70 extending in Z-direction as shown in
In such a manner, the substrate contact unit 67 of the holding pin 61 has the contacting surface 68 contacting to the substrate W on the concave curvature surface. Accordingly, the substrate contact unit 67 of the holding pin 61 has a large contacting surface to the substrate W and increasing the holding force to the substrate W, so that the substrate holding section 10 can suitably hold the substrate W.
The substrate W is rotating and the back surface of the substrate W is cleaned by a cleaning brush 41 while the cleaning process is carried out. Therefore, the substrate W is pressed and vibrated in an upper direction by the cleaning brush 41 in addition to centrifugal force by the rotation. On the other hand, the substrate W can be suppressed against out of alignment as the substrate W can be suitably held by the holding pin 61.
As shown in
On the other hand, the substrate W has the same state as the holding pin 61. As substrate W has a large contact area with the substrate contact unit 67, the pressure of a unit area applied by the substrate contact unit 67 is suppressed to be lower. As a result, a film N is suppressed to be removed from the substrate W when the film N, for example, an anti reflection film, a resist film, water repellent film, an underlying film or the like, is formed on the substrate W, as shown in
The holding pin 61 can be rotate around the rotation axis 52 by outer pressure. Therefore, when the holding pin 61 is shifted from the position Pa to the position Pb and the substrate contact unit 67 is contacted to the substrate W as shown in a left figure in
As described above, the chuck pin 11 includes a motor 65 in the axis unit 63 and the holding pin 61 can rotates around the rotation axis 52. The chuck pin 11 is controlled by the controller 4 to operate the motor 65 in a predetermined period so that the holding pin 61 is rotated in steps of a constant angle. The contacting surfaces 68 are repeatedly formed in the circumferential direction on the substrate contact unit 67 of the chuck pin 11. In such a manner, the contacting surface 68 to be contacted to the substrate W can be changed in a predetermined period. Accordingly, the holding pin 61 is easily retained and managed. In a case of a constitution of the substrate contact unit 67 as shown in
A camera can be set to observe an aspect of the holding pin 61. Images of the holding pin 61 took by the camera are analyzed by the controller 4 so that the controller 4 can instruct to chuck pin 11 to shift the rotation position of the holding pin 61 on the basis of the analysis. In such a manner, the holding pin 61 can be more easily to be retained and managed.
Each of convex curvature surfaces 69a-69f, each of which is called as convex curvature surface 69 hereinafter, is formed between adjacent contacting surfaces 68 to be continuous with a curvature surface in the substrate contact unit 67 of the holding pin 61.
In such a manner, as the convex curvature surface 69 is formed, in a case that the convex curvature surface 69 is contacted to the substrate W due to misalignment of the rotation position of the holding pin 61 when the holding pin 61 is shifted from the release state to the retention state, applying a strong pressure to the substrate W can be suppressed so that abrasion and breakage of the substrate contact unit 67 can be suppressed.
As shown in
As described above, the substrate holding section 10 holding the outer periphery portion of the substrate W with the disk type due to sandwiching the substrate W by chuck pins 11 and rotation driving section 20 rotating the substrate holding section 10 are included in the substrate processing apparatus 1 and the substrate rotation holding apparatus 2 according to the first embodiment. Furthermore, each of the chuck pins 11 includes the contacting surfaces 68 with the concave curvature surface to be contacted to the substrate W. Therefore, the substrate W can be suitably held to suppress generation of the particles from the substrate W and breakage or the like of the chuck pin 11, for example.
Next, a substrate processing apparatus and a substrate rotation holding apparatus according to a second embodiment are described. A constitution in the second embodiment is basically the same as that in the first embodiment other than a shape of substrate contact section in a chuck pin.
As shown in
The chuck pin 11 according to the second embodiment is constituted to be configured to hold substrates in which a substrate with different diameter to another substrate is included. In other words, concave curvature surfaces having different curvature each other are included in the substrate contact unit 167 according to the second embodiment. The substrate holding section 10 is controlled by the controller 4 to change a rotation position of the substrate contact unit 167 as the same as the substrate processing apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment. In such a manner, when the substrate W is constituted with a wafer with a 300 mm diameter, the rotation position of the substrate contact unit 167 of each of the chuck pins 11 is changed to be contacted to the substrate W at the first contacting surface 168A. Further, when the substrate W is constituted with a wafer with a 450 mm diameter, the rotation position of the substrate contact unit 167 of each of the chuck pins 11 is changed to be contacted to the substrate W at the first contacting surface 168B.
Accordingly, the substrates W with different diameters can be processed in the substrate processing apparatus according to the second embodiment. In such the processing, work changing the chuck pins or the like in every substrate size is not necessary to be able to improve through-put of the processing. In an example shown in
Each of the convex curvature surfaces 169a-169e, each of which is called as the convex curvature surface 169, is provided between the first contacting surfaces 168A, the second contacting surfaces 168B and the first contacting surface 168A and the second contacting surface 168B. As the convex curvature surface 169 is provided mentioned above, when the holding pin 61 is shifted from the release state to the retention state, in a case that the convex curvature surface 169 is contacted to the substrate W due to misalignment of the rotation position of the holding pin 61, applying a strong pressure to the substrate W can be suppressed so that abrasion and breakage of the substrate contact unit 67 can be suppressed.
In the first and second embodiments, a substrate cleaning apparatus, for example, is described as a substrate processing apparatus cleaning the back surface and the edge surface of the substrate W. However, the substrate processing apparatus is not restricted to the above apparatuses. A substrate processing apparatus may be a substrate cleaning apparatus which cleans a surface and an edge surface of the substrate.
In the embodiments described above, the substrate cleaning apparatus is described, for example, as the substrate processing apparatus. However, the substrate processing apparatus may be a coating and developing apparatus or a wet processing apparatus may be employed. When the substrate processing apparatus is the coating and developing apparatus or the wet processing apparatus, a nozzle providing chemical for a material processing a film is disposed and the chemical is provided from the nozzle while the substrate W is rotated in a retention state by the substrate rotation holding apparatus.
The substrate processing apparatus and the substrate rotation holding apparatus according to the first and embodiments are not restricted to an apparatus for fabricating a semiconductor device. The apparatuses can be employed in fabricating other than the semiconductor device. Kinds of a substrate such as a display substrate, a disk substrate, a photo mask substrate or the like other than the semiconductor substrate is used as the substrate to be held and rotated by the substrate rotation holding apparatus, so that the substrate can be processed in the substrate processing apparatus. Moreover, a liquid crystal substrate as the display substrate, a photo disk substrate, a magnetic disk substrate, and photo disk substrate as the disk substrate is employed as the substrate.
While certain embodiments have been described, these embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the inventions. Indeed, the novel embodiments described herein may be embodied in a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the embodiments described herein may be made without departing from the spirit of the inventions. The accompanying claims and their equivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as would fall within the scope and spirit of the inventions.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-033977 | Feb 2012 | JP | national |
