JP2014029891A - Semiconductor manufacturing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

Provided is a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus which can be operated from an operation unit while visually confirming a conveyance state and a housing state of a substrate container inside the apparatus.
A housing forming an outline of a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, a load port provided at a front portion of the apparatus for delivering a substrate container between the outside of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, and a rear of the load port A substrate container transport mechanism provided in the housing, a substrate container storage shelf provided in the housing behind the substrate container transport mechanism, and a part of the front surface of the housing The semiconductor manufacturing apparatus is configured to include a first transparent window portion provided above the load port and having a transparent window, and an operation unit provided at a front portion of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus. .
[Selection] Figure 3

Description

  The present invention relates to a substrate processing technique, and more particularly, in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus which is a manufacturing apparatus of a semiconductor integrated circuit device (IC), simultaneously processing a plurality of semiconductor substrates (for example, semiconductor wafers) on which a semiconductor integrated circuit is formed. The present invention relates to an effective vertical batch processing apparatus.

  There is a vertical batch processing apparatus as one of IC manufacturing apparatuses. In a vertical batch processing apparatus, for example, a substrate cassette conveyed from the outside of the apparatus is placed on a load port provided on the front surface of the apparatus and received, and transferred to a cassette storage shelf inside the apparatus for storage. Thereafter, the substrates are stacked in a vertical direction on the boat from the substrate cassette and mounted in multiple stages, and the boat on which the plurality of substrates are mounted is inserted into the processing furnace from below the processing furnace to perform heat treatment. In addition, a display operation unit is provided on the front surface of the apparatus, which displays the operating state of the apparatus and gives various operation instructions.

  The following Patent Document 1 discloses a loading / unloading stage unit (load port) on which a substrate cassette descending from an overhead transfer machine located outside the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus can be placed, an operation status display of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, There is disclosed a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus in which a display operation unit for performing an operation command operation is provided on the front surface of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus.

JP 2008-211244 A

For example, in a conventional vertical batch type processing apparatus, since almost all of the apparatus casing is made of metal, it is possible to visually confirm the conveyance state and accommodation state of a substrate container such as a cassette inside the apparatus. It was difficult.
An object of the present invention is to provide a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus capable of visually confirming a transport state, a housing state, and the like of a substrate container inside the device.

A typical configuration of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus of the present invention for solving the above-described problems is as follows. That is,
A housing that forms an outline of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus;
A load port provided at the front of the apparatus for transferring the substrate container to and from the outside of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus;
A substrate container transport mechanism provided in the housing behind the load port;
Substrate container storage shelf provided in the casing behind the substrate container transport mechanism;
Forming a part of the front surface of the housing, provided above the load port, a first transparent window portion having a transparent window;
An operation unit provided at a front portion of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus;
A semiconductor manufacturing apparatus comprising:

  According to the above configuration, since the operation unit and the first transparent window unit are provided at the front part of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, the substrate container transfer mechanism and the like inside the apparatus are visually confirmed through the first transparent window unit, from the operation unit. The operation can be performed.

1 is a perspective view of a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a perspective view which shows the vertical cross section of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a perspective view which shows the external appearance of the front surface of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention.

  Hereinafter, a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In the present embodiment, as an example, the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus is configured as a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus that performs processing steps in a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device (IC: Integrated Circuit). In the following description, a case where a batch type vertical semiconductor manufacturing apparatus (hereinafter simply referred to as a processing apparatus) that performs oxidation, diffusion processing, CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) processing, or the like is applied to a substrate as a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus will be described. FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a processing apparatus to which the present invention is applied, and is shown as a perspective view. FIG. 2 is a side perspective view of the processing apparatus shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 2, a processing apparatus 100 according to an embodiment in which a pod (substrate container) 110 is used as a wafer carrier that stores a wafer (substrate) 200 made of silicon or the like is an outline of the processing apparatus 100. A housing 111 is formed.
A pod loading / unloading port (substrate container loading / unloading port) 112 is opened at the bottom of the front wall 111a of the casing 111 so as to communicate with the inside and outside of the casing 111. The shutter (substrate container carry-in / out opening / closing mechanism) 113 is opened and closed. A load port (substrate container delivery table) 114 is installed in front of the pod loading / unloading port 112. The load port 114 is a horizontal base on which the pod 110 is placed and aligned. The load port 114 is provided at the front of the apparatus for delivering the pod 110 to and from the outside of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus. The pod 110 is carried onto the load port 114 by an in-process carrying device (not shown), and is also carried out from the load port 114.
A front lower maintenance port 103 as an opening provided for maintenance is opened at the lower front side of the load port 114, and front lower maintenance doors 104 and 104 for opening and closing the front lower maintenance port 103 are respectively installed. It has been.

  A rotating shelf (substrate container storage shelf) 105 is installed in an upper portion of the housing 111 at a substantially central portion in the front-rear direction. The rotating shelf 105 is configured to store a plurality of pods 110. Yes. The rotating shelf 105 includes a support column 116 that is erected vertically and intermittently rotates in a horizontal plane, and a plurality of shelf plates 117 that are radially supported by the support column 116 at each of the three upper and lower positions. The single shelf 117 is configured to hold a plurality of pods 110 mounted thereon.

As shown in FIG. 2, a pod transfer mechanism (substrate container transfer mechanism) 118 is installed between the load port 114 and the rotating shelf 105 in the casing 111. The pod transport mechanism 118 includes a pod elevator (substrate container lifting mechanism) 118a that can be moved up and down while holding the pod 110, and a pod transporter (substrate container transporter) 118b as a horizontal transport mechanism. The pod transport mechanism 118 transports the pod 110 between the load port 114, the rotary shelf 105, and the pod opener (substrate container lid opening / closing mechanism) 121 by continuous operation of the pod elevator 118a and the pod transporter 118b. It is configured as follows.
As described above, the pod transport mechanism 118 is provided behind the load port 114, and the rotating shelf 105 is provided behind the pod transport mechanism 118.

As shown in FIG. 2, a sub-housing 119 is provided across the rear end of the apparatus 100 at a lower portion of the housing 111 at a substantially central portion in the front-rear direction. A pair of wafer loading / unloading ports (substrate loading / unloading ports) 120 for loading / unloading the wafer 200 into / from the sub-casing 119 are arranged on the front wall 119a of the sub-casing 119 in two vertical stages. Has been established. A pair of pod openers 121 and 121 are installed at the upper and lower wafer loading / unloading ports 120 and 120, respectively.
The pod opener 121 includes mounting bases 122 and 122 on which the pod 110 is placed, and cap attaching / detaching mechanisms (lid attaching / detaching mechanisms) 123 and 123 that attach and detach caps (lids) of the pod 110. The pod opener 121 is configured to open and close the wafer loading / unloading port of the pod 110 by attaching / detaching the cap of the pod 110 placed on the placing table 122 by the cap attaching / detaching mechanism 123. The mounting table 122 is a transfer shelf on which the pod 110 is mounted when the wafer 200 is transferred.
As described above, the mounting table 122 serving as the substrate container mounting table is for mounting the pod 110 when the wafer 200 is transferred to the boat 217, and is provided behind the pod transfer mechanism 118.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the sub housing 119 constitutes a transfer chamber 124 that is isolated from the atmosphere of the installation space of the pod transport mechanism 118 and the rotating shelf 105. A wafer transfer mechanism (substrate transfer mechanism) 125 is installed in the front region of the transfer chamber 124. The wafer transfer mechanism 125 includes a wafer transfer machine (substrate transfer machine) 125a capable of rotating or linearly moving the wafer 200 in the horizontal direction, and a wafer transfer machine elevator (substrate transfer machine) for raising and lowering the wafer transfer machine 125a. Mounting mechanism elevating mechanism) 125b. By the continuous operation of the wafer transfer machine elevator 125b and the wafer transfer machine 125a, the tweezer (substrate holding body) 125c of the wafer transfer machine 125a is used as a mounting portion for the wafer 200 with respect to the boat (substrate holding tool) 217. The wafer 200 is loaded (charged) and unloaded (discharged).

As shown in FIG. 1, a clean atmosphere or an inert gas, clean air 133, is supplied to the left end of the transfer chamber 124 opposite to the wafer transfer machine elevator 125b side. A clean unit 134 composed of a supply fan and a dustproof filter is installed, and a notch as a substrate alignment device that aligns the circumferential position of the wafer between the wafer transfer device 125a and the clean unit 134. A matching device 135 (not shown) is installed.
The clean air 133 blown out from the clean unit 134 is circulated through the notch aligner 135 and the wafer transfer device 125a, and then sucked in by a duct (not shown) to be exhausted to the outside of the casing 111 or clean. The unit 134 is circulated to the primary side (supply side) which is the suction side, and is again blown into the transfer chamber 124 by the clean unit 134.

In the rear area of the transfer chamber 124, a casing (hereinafter referred to as a pressure-resistant casing) 140 (not shown) having a confidential performance capable of maintaining a pressure lower than atmospheric pressure (hereinafter referred to as negative pressure) is installed. Thus, a load lock chamber 141 (not shown), which is a load lock type standby chamber having a volume capable of accommodating the boat 217, is formed by the pressure-resistant housing 140.
A wafer loading / unloading opening (substrate loading / unloading opening) 142 (not illustrated) is provided in the front wall 140a (not illustrated) of the pressure-resistant housing 140, and the wafer loading / unloading opening 142 is configured by a gate valve (substrate loading / unloading outlet). It is opened and closed by an opening / closing mechanism 143 (not shown). A gas supply pipe 144 (not shown) for supplying nitrogen gas to the load lock chamber 141 and an exhaust pipe 145 for exhausting the load lock chamber 141 to a negative pressure are provided on a pair of side walls of the pressure-resistant housing 140. (Not shown) are connected to each other.
As shown in FIG. 2, a processing furnace 202 is provided above the load lock chamber 141 in the casing 111 and behind the rotating shelf 105. The lower end portion of the processing furnace 202 is configured to be opened and closed by a furnace port gate valve (furnace port opening / closing mechanism) 147. A furnace port gate valve cover 149 (not shown) that houses the furnace port gate valve 147 when the lower end portion of the processing furnace 202 is opened is attached to the upper end portion of the front wall 140 a of the pressure-resistant housing 140.

As shown in FIG. 1, a boat elevator (substrate holder lifting mechanism) 115 for raising and lowering the boat 217 is installed in the pressure-resistant housing 140. A seal cap 219 serving as a lid is horizontally installed on an arm 128 serving as a connector connected to the boat elevator 115, and the seal cap 219 supports the boat 217 vertically and a lower end portion of the processing furnace 202. Is configured to be occluded.
The boat 217 includes a plurality of holding members, and horizontally holds a plurality of (for example, about 50 to 125) wafers 200 with their centers aligned and vertically aligned. It is configured as follows.

Next, the operation of the processing apparatus of the present invention will be described.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, when the pod 110 is supplied to the load port 114, the pod loading / unloading port 112 is opened by the front shutter 113, and the pod conveying mechanism 118 allows the pod loading / unloading port 112 to be opened. It is brought in.
The loaded pod 110 is automatically conveyed and delivered to the designated shelf plate 117 of the rotating shelf 105 by the pod conveying mechanism 118.

  After the pod 110 is temporarily stored on the rotating shelf 105, the pod 110 is transferred from the shelf 117 to one pod opener 121 and transferred to the mounting table 122 by the pod transfer mechanism 118, or from the load port 114. It is directly conveyed to the pod opener 121 and transferred to the mounting table 122. At this time, the wafer loading / unloading port 120 of the pod opener 121 is closed by the cap attaching / detaching mechanism 123, and the transfer chamber 124 is filled with clean air 133. For example, the transfer chamber 124 is set to be much lower than the oxygen concentration inside the casing 111 (atmosphere) so that the oxygen concentration becomes 20 ppm or less when the clean air 133 is filled with nitrogen gas. Yes.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the pod 110 mounted on the mounting table 122 has its opening-side end surface pressed against the opening edge of the wafer loading / unloading port 120 in the front wall 119 a of the sub-casing 119 and its cap. Is removed by the cap attaching / detaching mechanism 123, and the wafer loading / unloading opening of the pod 110 is opened. Further, when the wafer loading / unloading opening 142 of the load lock chamber 141 whose interior is previously set to the atmospheric pressure state is opened by the operation of the gate valve 143, the wafer 200 is moved from the pod 110 to the tweezer 125 c of the wafer transfer machine 125 a. The wafer is picked up through the wafer loading / unloading port, aligned with the notch aligner 135, and then loaded into the load lock chamber 141 through the wafer loading / unloading opening 142, transferred to the boat 217, and loaded (wafer charging). . The wafer transfer device 125 a that has transferred the wafer 200 to the boat 217 returns to the pod 110 and loads the next wafer 110 into the boat 217.

  During the loading operation of the wafer 200 to the boat 217 by the wafer transfer device 125 in the one (upper or lower) pod opener 121, the other (lower or upper) pod opener 121 includes the rotating shelf 105 or the load port 114. The other pod 110 is transported by the pod transport mechanism 118, and the pod opener 121 is simultaneously opened by the pod opener 121.

When a predetermined number of wafers 200 are loaded into the boat 217, the wafer loading / unloading opening 142 is closed by the gate valve 143, and the load lock chamber 141 is evacuated by being evacuated from the exhaust pipe 145.
When the load lock chamber 141 is reduced to the same pressure as that in the processing furnace 202, the lower end portion of the processing furnace 202 is opened by the furnace port gate valve 147. At this time, the furnace port gate valve 147 is carried into and stored in the furnace port gate valve cover 149.
Subsequently, the seal cap 219 is raised by the boat elevator 115, and the boat 217 supported by the seal cap 219 is loaded into the processing furnace 202.

  After loading, an arbitrary heat treatment is performed on the wafer 200 in the processing furnace 202. After the processing, the boat 217 is pulled out by the boat elevator 115, and the gate valve 143 is opened after the inside of the load lock chamber 140 is restored to atmospheric pressure. After that, the wafer 200 and the pod 110 are discharged to the outside of the casing 111 by the reverse procedure described above except for the wafer alignment process in the notch alignment device 135.

Next, characteristic parts of the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing the appearance of the front surface of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention, and shows only the front portion of the housing 111.
As shown in FIG. 3, in the present embodiment, a front upper maintenance port 35 is provided on the front wall 111 a of the housing 111 and above the load port 114. The front upper maintenance port 35 is for maintaining the vicinity of the upper front surface in the processing apparatus 100. The front upper maintenance port 35 is provided with a front upper maintenance door 36 that can be opened and closed. The front upper maintenance door 36 is provided with a transparent window portion 31a having a transparent window made of acrylic in the vertical direction. In FIG. 3, the transparent window is indicated by hatching.

  Below the transparent window 31a, a transparent window 31b having an acrylic transparent window in the vertical direction is provided up to the vicinity of the pod loading / unloading port 112 below the front wall 111a so as to be continuous with the transparent window 31a. ing. The 1st transparent window part 31 is comprised from the transparent window part 31a and the transparent window part 31b. Thus, the 1st transparent window part 31 comprises a part of front surface of the housing | casing 111, and is provided from the upper part of the front wall 111a to the pod carrying-in / out port 112 vicinity of the lower part of the front wall 111a. In this example, the size of the transparent window portion 31a is 590 mm in length and 905 mm in width, and the size of the transparent window portion 31 b is 590 mm in length and 905 mm in width. In addition, it is also possible to comprise the 1st transparent window part 31 only by any one of the transparent window part 31a and the transparent window part 31b.

An operator or the like of the processing apparatus 100 passes through the transparent first transparent window 31 to the state of the pod transfer mechanism 118 and the rotary shelf 105 inside the casing 111 and to the pod 110 and the rotary shelf 105 being transferred by the pod transfer mechanism 118. The pod storage state and pod transport state such as the state of the mounted pod 110 can be visually confirmed, and the safety and operability when manually transporting the pod can be improved.
For example, when a transport error has occurred in the pod 110, the fact that a transport error has occurred can be seen from the error display on the operation unit 34, but the actual trouble in the transport area cannot be determined by the operation unit 34 alone. Confirmation by is required. If the front upper maintenance door 36 is not transparent, the front upper maintenance door 36 must be opened and maintenance personnel must enter the device to confirm the location and status of the trouble. Safety and operability are inferior to form.

  As shown in FIG. 3, an operation panel 33 including a vertical portion 33a and an inclined portion 33b is provided in front of the front wall 111a of the housing 111 with a space from the front wall 111a. The space between the operation panel 33 and the front wall 111a is a space for passing the pod 110 vertically from the top to the bottom when the pod 110 is loaded onto the load port 114 from above by the in-process transfer device. The operation panel 33 is supported by the casing 111 on its side surface.

  In the vertical portion 33a of the operation panel 33, an operation unit 34 including a display unit such as an LCD is provided. From the operation unit 34, various instructions to the processing apparatus 100, for example, an instruction to execute a film forming process by automatic operation, an instruction to manually change a processing recipe, and a pod 110 are manually loaded from the rotating shelf 105 or the mounting table 122. An instruction to carry out to the port 114 is instructed to a control unit (not shown) of the processing apparatus 100. The height of the operation unit 34 is set near the position of the operator's eyes, and is set, for example, at a position of about 1650 mm from the floor. As described above, the operation unit 34 is provided above and in front of the load port 114.

An inclined portion 33 b is provided above the vertical portion 33 a of the operation panel 33. In this example, the angle formed by the inclined surface of the inclined portion 33b and the vertical direction is 15 degrees. A second transparent window 32 having a horizontally long rectangular acrylic transparent window is provided on the upper portion of the inclined portion 33b. In the present example, the size of the second transparent window portion 32 is 118 mm in length and 800 mm in width. As described above, the second transparent window portion 32 is provided in front of the first transparent window portion 31 so as to be separated from the first transparent window portion 31 in the front-rear direction.
As shown in FIG. 3, the second transparent window portion 32 is provided at the upper end of the inclined portion 33 b of the operation panel 33. That is, the upper end of the inclined portion 33b is cut into a horizontally long rectangle, and a transparent window is formed in the cut portion. Thereby, since the image seen through the 2nd transparent window part 32 and the image seen through the 1st transparent window part 31 appear continuously without a break, visibility can be improved. If acrylic is not provided in the second transparent window portion 32 and is left in a state of being cut into a horizontally long rectangle, for example, the operator's hand can easily enter the back side of the operation panel 33, and safety is reduced. To do.

An operator or the like of the processing apparatus 100 passes through the transparent second transparent window portion 32 and the first transparent window portion 31 and is in the state of the pod transfer mechanism 118 and the rotating shelf 105 inside the casing 111 and is being transferred by the pod transfer mechanism 118. The pod storage state and the pod transport state such as the state of the pod 110 placed on the pod 110 and the rotating shelf 105 can be visually confirmed, and safety and operability can be improved.
Further, in this example, the operator of the processing apparatus 100 can also check the state of the pod 110 mounted on the mounting table 122 of the pod opener 121 through the transparent second transparent window portion 32 and the first transparent window portion 31. It can be confirmed visually.
Thus, by providing the 2nd transparent window part 32, compared with the case where only the 1st transparent window part 31 is provided, the inside of the processing apparatus 100 can be visually confirmed in a wider range.

  In addition, this invention is not limited to the said embodiment, It cannot be overemphasized that it can change variously in the range which does not deviate from the summary. For example, the transparent window portion is not completely transparent, but includes a portion that is translucent, that is, the inside can be seen at all. Further, the present invention can be applied not only to a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus but also to an apparatus for processing a glass substrate such as an LCD manufacturing apparatus and other semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses. The processing content of the substrate processing may be not only film formation processing for forming CVD, PVD, oxide film, nitride film, metal-containing film and the like, but also exposure processing, lithography, coating processing and the like.

The present specification includes the following inventions related to semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses. That is, the first invention is
A housing that forms an outline of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus;
A load port provided at the front of the apparatus for transferring the substrate container to and from the outside of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus;
A substrate container transport mechanism provided in the housing behind the load port;
Substrate container storage shelf provided in the casing behind the substrate container transport mechanism;
Forming a part of the front surface of the housing, provided above the load port, a first transparent window portion having a transparent window;
An operation unit provided at a front portion of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus;
A semiconductor manufacturing apparatus comprising:
In this way, since there is an operation part and a first transparent window part at the front part of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, the operation from the operation part can be performed while visually confirming the substrate container transport mechanism inside the apparatus through the first transparent window part. It can be carried out.

A second invention is the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus of the first invention,
The operation unit is provided above and in front of the load port,
A semiconductor manufacturing apparatus including a second transparent window having a transparent window, which is provided above the operation unit and spaced apart from the first transparent window in the front-rear direction.
In this case, since there is the second transparent window portion, when the operation is performed from the operation portion provided above and in front of the load port, the substrate inside the apparatus is accommodated from the second transparent window portion through the first transparent window portion. It becomes easy to visually check the container transport mechanism.

A third invention is the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus of the second invention,
The second transparent window part is a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus provided at an upper end of the operation part.
If it does in this way, when operating from the operation part provided above and ahead of a load port, it will become easy to see the inside of an apparatus further from the 2nd transparent window part through the 1st transparent window part.

A fourth invention is the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus of the second invention or the third invention,
Provided in the housing behind the substrate container transfer mechanism and below the substrate container storage shelf, and includes a substrate container mounting table on which the substrate container is mounted when the substrate is transferred to the boat. Semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
If it does in this way, when operating from the operation part provided above and ahead of the load port, it becomes easy to see the substrate container mounting table inside the apparatus from the second transparent window part through the first transparent window part.

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 31 ... 1st transparent window part, 32 ... 2nd transparent window part, 33 ... Operation panel, 34 ... Operation part, 35 ... Front upper maintenance port, 36 ... Front upper maintenance door, 100 ... Processing apparatus, 103 ... Lower front maintenance Mouth, 104 ... lower front maintenance door, 105 ... rotating shelf, 110 ... pod, 111 ... housing, 111a ... front wall, 112 ... pod loading / unloading port, 113 ... front shutter, 114 ... load port, 115 ... boat elevator, 116 ... posts, 117 ... shelf, 118 ... pod transport mechanism, 118a ... pod elevator, 118b ... pod transporter, 119 ... sub-housing, 120 ... wafer loading / unloading port, 121 ... pod opener, 122 ... mounting table, 123 ... Cap attaching / detaching mechanism, 124 ... Transfer chamber, 125 ... Wafer transfer mechanism, 128 ... Arm, 133 ... Clean air , 134 ... clean unit, 140 ... pressure-resistant housing, 141 ... load lock chamber, 142 ... wafer loading / unloading opening, 147 ... furnace port gate valve, 149 ... furnace port gate valve cover, 200 ... wafer, 202 ... processing furnace, 217 ... boat, 219 ... seal cap.

Claims (1)

A housing that forms an outline of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus;
A load port provided at the front of the apparatus for transferring the substrate container to and from the outside of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus;
A substrate container transport mechanism provided in the housing behind the load port;
Substrate container storage shelf provided in the casing behind the substrate container transport mechanism;
Forming a part of the front surface of the housing, provided above the load port, a first transparent window portion having a transparent window;
An operation unit provided at a front portion of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus;
A semiconductor manufacturing apparatus comprising:

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