JP2002263548A - Film forming apparatus and film forming method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a coating forming apparatus capable of shortening the cycle time of a coating forming line without requiring a robot or the like required to be capable of performing complicated movements. SOLUTION: The coating forming apparatus comprises a coating apparatus, a rotating apparatus, a first vacuum drying apparatus, a second vacuum drying apparatus, a washing apparatus and a heating apparatus arranged in this order from the upstream side to the downstream side along a transportation line of a substrate.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus for forming a film on the surface of a substrate such as a glass substrate or a semiconductor wafer and a method for forming a film using the apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A resist film or insulation (SOG) is formed on a substrate surface.
The present inventors have proposed an apparatus disclosed in JP-A-3-101866 as an apparatus for forming a film. This film forming apparatus includes a coating device upstream of a substrate transport line, a reduced-pressure drying device downstream of the coating device for drying a coating liquid to a dry state, and a downstream side of the reduced-pressure drying device on the back surface of the substrate. A back surface cleaning device for removing the coating solution that has flowed in, and a heating and drying device for completely drying the coating film are disposed downstream of the back surface cleaning device.

[0003]

In general, when various processing apparatuses are arranged along a transfer line to perform processing on a processing object such as a substrate, the tact time when the processing object is unloaded from the transfer line is as described above. It is determined by the longest processing time of each processing. The longest processing time in the above-mentioned film forming apparatus is a vacuum drying apparatus. Therefore, shortening the reduced-pressure drying processing time improves the overall processing efficiency. A possible means for this is a method of arranging two reduced-pressure drying apparatuses in parallel or in series along a transport line, and alternately loading substrates into these two reduced-pressure drying apparatuses.

FIG. 3 shows an example in which two vacuum drying apparatuses are arranged in parallel along a transport line, and FIG. 4 shows the relationship between the vacuum drying time and the pressure. As shown in FIG. 3 and FIG.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 101866 discloses a film forming apparatus which can be easily conceived. The coating apparatus is provided on the upstream side of a transport line, and the rotation processing apparatus for uniformly diffusing the coating liquid is provided on the downstream side of the coating apparatus. The two vacuum drying devices are arranged in parallel along the transport line on the downstream side of the machine, and the substrate from the rotary processing device is alternately distributed to the two vacuum drying devices by a robot equipped with an arm. is there. That is, the first substrate is sent to the first vacuum drying device (VD), and about 4
After 5 seconds, it is fed to the second vacuum drying device (VD) so that the takt time sent to the downstream heating device is about 45 seconds, which is half of the conventional one.

However, in the above-mentioned film forming apparatus, a robot for alternately distributing the substrate from the rotary processing apparatus to two reduced-pressure drying apparatuses is required, and the entire apparatus becomes large. What is more problematic is that it is difficult to exactly match the processing conditions of the two vacuum drying apparatuses,
The substrate cannot be decompressed under exactly the same conditions. As a result, substrates in different dry states are alternately sent to the downstream side, which hinders processing on the downstream side.

The same problem as described above occurs when two vacuum drying apparatuses are simply arranged in series. In other words, a transport device for jumping over the upstream vacuum drying device and sending the substrate to the downstream vacuum drying device, or jumping over the downstream vacuum drying device and sending the substrate to the heating drying device is separately required, and in parallel. The device becomes large as in the case of the arrangement. Further, similarly to the case where the substrates are arranged in parallel, it is difficult to strictly match the processing conditions of the upstream and downstream vacuum drying apparatuses, so that there is also a problem that the substrates cannot be subjected to vacuum processing under exactly the same conditions. .

[0007]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a film forming apparatus according to the present invention is provided with a coating station on a line for transporting a substrate from an upstream side to a downstream side, and a coating station downstream of the coating station. In the film forming apparatus having a reduced-pressure drying station disposed on the line, a plurality of reduced-pressure drying devices are disposed in series on the line at the reduced-pressure drying station, and the reduced-pressure drying device on the downstream side completes the reduced-pressure drying process on the upstream side. The plurality of reduced-pressure drying apparatuses can independently set processing conditions in order to continue processing after receiving the substrate.

As a coating device disposed in the coating station, a rotating cup type coating device, an open cup type coating device, a slit coater, or the like can be used. May be arranged downstream of the rotary processing device.

Further, as a reduced-pressure drying device, a structure is conceivable in which an opening for taking in and out a substrate is provided in an airtight container connected to a suction device, and a substrate is taken in and out by a transfer arm. A load lock chamber may be provided in the opening. It is. The reduced pressure state of the reduced pressure drying device on the upstream side and the reduced pressure drying device on the downstream side can be arbitrarily set, and the reduced pressure condition of the reduced pressure drying device on the upstream side and the reduced pressure drying device on the downstream side may be equal, Either one may be set lower than the other. In order to increase the drying efficiency, it is preferable to set the pressure of the reduced-pressure drying device on the downstream side to be lower than that of the reduced-pressure drying device on the upstream side.

Further, a cleaning device for removing excess coating liquid adhering to the edge or the back surface of the substrate may be provided on the downstream side of the reduced-pressure drying station, or a heating and drying device may be provided immediately without providing a cleaning device. Good.

Further, a film forming method according to the present invention is a method for forming a film using the above-described film forming apparatus. The processing time in each of the reduced-pressure dryers is the time obtained by subtracting the open-to-atmosphere time and the transport time in each of the reduced-pressure dryers from the tact time. With such a configuration, in each of the reduced-pressure drying apparatuses, the reduced-pressure drying can be performed without waste within the takt time.

In the case of drying under reduced pressure, the processing can be continued on the downstream side if the drying is performed to some extent on the upstream side. In the case of the present invention, since all the substrates pass through two reduced-pressure drying devices, the same conditions are applied to all substrates.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. 1 (a) to 1 (e) are diagrams illustrating a film forming apparatus and a film forming method according to the present invention over time, and FIG. 2 is a graph showing a relationship between a reduced-pressure drying time and a pressure according to the present invention.

[0014] The film forming apparatus according to the present invention comprises, in order from the upstream side to the downstream side along the substrate transfer line, a coating apparatus, a rotation processing apparatus, a first reduced-pressure drying apparatus (VD), and a second reduced-pressure drying apparatus. A drying device (VD), a washing device and / or a heating and drying device are arranged.

Next, the processing procedure will be described. First, as shown in FIG. 1 (a), a coating liquid is applied to a first substrate by a coating apparatus and is carried into a rotation processing apparatus. The time required for the coating process including the transport time to the rotation processing device is 60
Seconds.

Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 1B, while the first substrate is being carried into the rotation processing device, the second substrate is carried into the coating device. Here, the time required for the processing in the rotary processing apparatus is 60 seconds or less including the time for transport to the first reduced-pressure drying apparatus, but the processing in the coating apparatus requires 60 seconds, so 120 seconds from the start of the processing. Is in the state shown in FIG.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1 (c), the first substrate is loaded into the first vacuum drying device, the second substrate is loaded into the rotation processing device, and the third substrate is loaded. Carry in the coating device. Then, as shown in FIG. 2, 1.0 Torr (about 13 Torr) was taken for 33.5 seconds in the first vacuum drying apparatus (VD).
The pressure is reduced to 3.32 Pa). Thereafter, the pressure is returned to the atmospheric pressure in 4 seconds, and then transported to the second reduced-pressure drying device in 20 seconds. Assuming that the processing time in the first reduced-pressure drying apparatus includes the transfer time to the second reduced-pressure drying apparatus (VD), the processing time in the first reduced-pressure drying apparatus is 57.5 seconds. Since the time required for the processing in the coating device is 60 seconds, the tact time of the entire film forming device is determined by the coating device. Therefore,
180 seconds after the start of the processing, the processing of the first substrate in the first reduced-pressure drying apparatus is completed.

Here, in the apparatus shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 as easily conceivable from the conventional example, the time required for the reduced-pressure drying station was 45 seconds per substrate. However, if the time required for the vacuum drying station is less than the time required for processing in the coating apparatus (60 seconds), the takt time of the entire film forming apparatus is limited by the processing time in the coating apparatus. It doesn't make sense.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1 (d), the first substrate is carried into the second vacuum drying device, the second substrate is carried into the first vacuum drying device, and the third substrate is carried out. Is carried into the rotation processing apparatus, and the fourth substrate is carried into the coating apparatus.

Then, as shown in FIG. 2, the first substrate is subjected to 1.0T for 1 second in a second vacuum drying apparatus.
The pressure is reduced to orr (about 133.32 Pa) and further reduced to 0.5 Torr (about 66.66 Pa) over 32.5 seconds. Thereafter, the pressure is returned to the atmospheric pressure in 5 seconds, and then transported to the cleaning device in 20 seconds. Assuming that the processing time in the second reduced-pressure drying apparatus includes the transfer time to the cleaning apparatus, the processing time in the second reduced-pressure drying apparatus is 58.5 seconds. Since the time required for the treatment is 60 seconds, the tact time of the entire film forming apparatus is determined by the coating apparatus.

The time required for processing in the coating apparatus is 6 times.
0 seconds and a processing time of 57.5 in the first vacuum drying apparatus.
The difference of 2.5 seconds from the second and the difference of 1.5 seconds from the processing time of 58.5 seconds in the second reduced-pressure drying apparatus are required for the coating apparatus as standby time in the processing method in each reduced-pressure drying apparatus. It is preferable to set it so as to match 60 seconds. Therefore, 240 seconds after the start of the processing, the processing of the first substrate by the second reduced-pressure drying apparatus is completed.

Further, the substrate is dried to some extent because the pressure is reduced to 1.0 Torr in 33.5 seconds in the first reduced-pressure drying apparatus. Therefore, even if the pressure is reduced to 1.0 Torr in 1 second in the second reduced-pressure drying apparatus, the coating formed on the substrate is not affected at all. Furthermore,
Unless the pressure is reduced to 0.5 Torr, a desired film cannot be obtained, but in order to finally obtain a desired film, 0.5 Torr is required.
Since r is enough, there is no need to reduce the pressure further.

Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 1E, the first substrate is loaded into the cleaning device, the second substrate is loaded into the second vacuum drying device, and the third substrate is loaded. The first substrate is carried into the first vacuum drying device, the fourth substrate is carried into the rotation processing device, and the fifth substrate is carried into the coating device. Then, 300 seconds after the start of the processing, the processing of the first substrate in the cleaning apparatus ends. By repeating the above operation, a film is continuously formed on the substrate surface.

[0024]

According to the present invention as described above,
Since a plurality of reduced-pressure drying devices arranged in a reduced-pressure drying station of a film forming line were arranged in series, and a substrate processed halfway by an upstream reduced-pressure drying device was continuously processed by a downstream reduced-pressure drying device. Further, the tact time of the film forming line can be shortened without requiring a robot or the like which requires complicated movement.

Further, in the present invention, since the substrates are processed by all the reduced-pressure drying apparatuses disposed in the reduced-pressure drying station, all the substrates are processed under the same conditions. Therefore, the downstream processing can be performed uniformly.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 illustrates a film forming apparatus and a film forming method according to the present invention over time.

FIG. 2 is a graph showing the relationship between reduced pressure drying time and pressure according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a conventional example in which two vacuum drying apparatuses are arranged in parallel along a transport line.

FIG. 4 is a graph showing the relationship between the conventional reduced-pressure drying time and pressure.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification code FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H01L 21/31 H01L 21/68 A 5F045 21/68 21/30 562 5F046 F term (reference) 2H025 AA04 AB16 DA19 EA04 EA10 3L113 AA02 AB10 AC23 AC67 BA34 CA20 CB34 CB35 DA04 DA06 4D075 AC73 CA47 DB13 DB31 DC21 DC22 4F042 AA02 AA07 AA10 DC00 ED05 5F031 CA02 CA05 FA01 FA02 FA07 MA03 MA26 PA04 5F045 BB08 DQ15 EB08 HA14

Claims (2)

[Claims] A coating station provided on a line for transferring a substrate from an upstream side to a downstream side; and a reduced-pressure drying station disposed on a line downstream of the coating station. A plurality of vacuum drying apparatuses are arranged in series on a line, and the vacuum drying apparatuses on the downstream side receive the substrate on which the vacuum drying processing on the upstream side is completed, and the vacuum drying apparatuses are respectively arranged to continue the processing. A film forming apparatus characterized in that processing conditions can be set independently. 2. A method for forming a film using the film forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the tact time in the method for forming a film is limited by the processing time in a coating station, and each of the components constituting a reduced-pressure drying station. The method for forming a coating film, wherein the processing time in the reduced-pressure drying apparatus is a time obtained by subtracting the time for opening to the atmosphere and the transport time in each reduced-pressure drying apparatus from the tact time.