JPH07321178A - Carrier device and multichamber device with the carrier device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve throughput of processing by improving processing ability of a multichamber device. CONSTITUTION:The title device has a carrier chamber 10 and a plurality of processing chambers 11 to 13 arranged around it. Two processing objects carried into a load lock chamber 14 from a loader 20 are mounted on carrying hands 37a, 37b of a carrier device 30, respectively. Each of the processing objects carried into three processing chambers 11 to 13 one by one by the carrier device 30 and processed in each processing chambers 11 to 13 are carried into a processing chamber at the side of a postprocess by the carrier device 30 one by one and are returned to the loader 20 through the load lock chamber 14. Each of the processing chambers 11 to 13 has two processing stages corresponding to the number of carrying hands 37a, 37b.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a technique of a multi-chamber apparatus having a plurality of processing chambers for performing processing such as sputtering processing on a semiconductor wafer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When a thin film for wiring is formed on a semiconductor wafer (hereinafter referred to as a wafer) by sputtering, in order to improve the throughput and the integrated molding of a laminated film, for example, "Journal of Semiconduc" issued by Press Journal Co., Ltd.
tor World "February 1993 issue January 20, 1993, P
As described in 30 to P34, a multi-chamber apparatus is used in which a plurality of sputtering processing chambers are provided around a transfer chamber arranged in the center.

In the multi-chamber apparatus, in order to solve cross-contamination when different treatments are performed in the same treatment chamber, one treatment chamber is used to perform one type of treatment and each treatment chamber is evacuated independently. As a result, the number of processing chambers increases, the number of pumps increases, and the exhaust system becomes complicated. Therefore, the apparatus price is high and it is necessary to use a wide clean room space.

[0004]

In such a multi-chamber apparatus, processing chambers for carrying out processing under mutually different conditions are arranged around a transfer chamber called a transfer chamber or a buffer chamber, and wafers are processed. A plurality of processes are carried out by sequentially transporting them into the respective processing chambers. When transferring a wafer into each processing chamber, the processed wafer is taken out of the processing chamber in which the last processing is performed, the wafer is transferred from the processing chamber of the front end process side to the processing chamber of the rear end process side, and the wafer is loaded. A new wafer is loaded into the first processing chamber from the lock chamber.

Therefore, in order to carry the wafer, it is necessary to carry a new wafer into the first processing chamber and shift the wafer into the post-processing processing chamber.
Therefore, the time required to transfer the wafer is longer than the processing time in each processing chamber. In other words, it is not the processing time in each processing chamber that determines the overall throughput of the multi-chamber system,
In many cases, it is time to transfer the wafer into each processing chamber.

[0006] It is an object of the present invention to improve the throughput of a multi-chamber system to improve the throughput of processing.

The above and other objects and novel features of the present invention will be apparent from the description of this specification and the accompanying drawings.

[0008]

Among the inventions disclosed in the present application, a brief description will be given to the outline of typical ones.
It is as follows.

That is, the carrying apparatus of the present invention has a plurality of supporting portions for respectively supporting a plurality of objects to be processed,
It is characterized in that a plurality of objects to be processed are simultaneously conveyed to respective processing chambers.

And, the multi-chamber apparatus of the present invention is
A transfer means is provided in the transfer chamber for supporting the plurality of objects to be processed and simultaneously transferring the objects to the respective processing chambers, and a plurality of processing stages for supporting the plurality of objects to be processed are provided in the processing chambers It is characterized by that.

Each processing chamber is designed to perform the same processing on a plurality of objects to be processed, and the objects to be processed are conveyed in a state of being horizontally arranged or in a state of being vertically arranged. Then, it is supported by the processing stage in the processing chamber. Furthermore, each processing chamber has a partition member that divides each processing chamber into a plurality of parts corresponding to a plurality of objects to be processed. The transfer means supports the two objects to be processed and simultaneously transfers the two objects to be processed into the respective processing chambers.

[0012]

In the transport apparatus having the above construction, a plurality of processed products can be transported into the processing chamber, so that the transportation efficiency is improved.

Further, in the multi-chamber apparatus, a plurality of processing stages are respectively provided in a plurality of processing chambers arranged adjacent to the transfer chamber, and each processing stage has a plurality of objects to be processed by the transfer means. Since the objects are conveyed at the same time, the processing efficiency can be significantly improved.

Further, a plurality of objects to be processed may be conveyed in a state of being horizontally arranged, or may be conveyed in a state of being arranged vertically, and these may be conveyed according to the installation site of the multi-chamber apparatus. It is arbitrarily selected.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing a multi-chamber apparatus which is an embodiment of the present invention.
First processing chamber 11, second processing chamber 12 and third processing chamber 13
The three processing chambers and the load lock chamber 14 are arranged. Further, the gate valve 1 is provided between the processing chambers 11 to 13 and the load lock chamber 14 and the transfer chamber 10.
5 to 18 are provided and can be freely opened and closed.

A gate valve 19 is provided in the load lock chamber 14.
The loader 20 is arranged via the
Is provided with two carrier jigs 21a and 21b. In order to transfer the wafers stored in the carrier jigs 21a and 21b to the preheating stages 22a and 22b provided in the load lock chamber 14, the loader 20 is provided with transfer arms 23a and 23b. .

After the wafers from the preheating stages 22a and 22b in the load lock chamber 14 are loaded into the transfer chamber 10, the three processing chambers 11 to 1 are sequentially loaded.
A transport device 30 is arranged for transporting to 3.

The transfer device 30 has a swivel base 32 which rotates about an orbital shaft 31 extending in a substantially vertical direction, and a drive arm 34 is attached to each of two transfer shafts 33 provided on the swivel base 32. Has been. A transfer arm 35 is pin-connected to each drive arm 34, and each transfer arm 35 is pin-connected to a support base 36. Transfer hands 37a and 37b for supporting the wafer are attached to the support base 36 as support portions.

In the carrying device 30, a hand 37 for carrying is provided by rotating a swivel base 32 around a revolution shaft 31.
The a and 37b can be opposed to the three processing chambers 11 to 13 and the load lock chamber 14, respectively. Also,
By driving at least one of the two transport shafts 33, the transport hands 37a and 37b move forward and backward via the drive arm 34 and the transport arm 35.

In each of the processing chambers 11 to 13, two processing stages 41a to 43b are arranged, and each processing stage is provided with a processing electrode (not shown). And each processing chamber 11-1
Partition plates 44 to 4 between the two processing stages
6 is installed to prevent cross contamination in the case where two wafers are simultaneously processed in each of the processing chambers 11 to 13.

Explaining the procedure for performing the sputtering process on the wafer by the multi-chamber apparatus having the above-described transfer device 30, the wafers stored in the two carrier jigs 21a and 21b are transferred to the transfer arm 23.
It is conveyed to the load lock chamber 14 under atmospheric pressure by a and 23b and placed on the preheating stages 22a and 22b. Next, the gate valve 19 is closed, the load lock chamber 14 is evacuated by a vacuum pump (not shown), and then the gate valve 18 is opened.

In this state, the transport device 30 is driven to drive the swivel base 32 at the rotational position shown in FIG. 1 to drive the drive shaft 33 to move the two transport hands 37a and 37b forward. As a result, the wafers on the preheating stages 22a and 22b in the load lock chamber 14 are transferred to the transfer hands 37a,
The wafer is transferred to 37b, and the wafer is loaded into the transfer chamber 10. After that, the gate valve 18 is closed.

Next, when the swivel base 32 is rotated 90 ° clockwise in FIG. 1, the three transfer hands 37a, 37 are transferred.
b is a position facing the processing chamber 11. In this state, the gate valve 15 is opened and the transfer hands 37a and 37b are moved forward to transfer the respective wafers to the processing stages 41a and 41b. After the transfer is completed, the gate valve 15 is closed and the respective processing stages 41a, 4a
The sputtering process is performed in 1b. At this time, since the partition plate 44 is installed between the two processing stages 41a and 41b, cross contamination is prevented.

After the processing is completed in the first processing chamber 11, the wafers are sequentially transferred to the other processing chambers 12 and 13 and processed under a total of three different conditions, and then loaded. Through the lock chamber 14, the carrier jig 21a,
21b, and a series of processing is completed.

In this way, in the illustrated case, since two wafers are simultaneously processed in the respective processing chambers 11 to 13, the processing capacity, that is, the throughput is doubled without greatly expanding the area occupied by the apparatus. It becomes possible to

As described above, the support base 3 of the transfer device 30
When two transport hands 37a and 37b are provided in 6, when assembling the multi-chamber device,
It is desirable that the position of the sample stage in the processing stage in each of the processing chambers 11 to 13 can be finely adjusted according to the assembly error of the transfer device 30.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing a part of the processing chamber 11, showing a mechanism for finely adjusting the sample stands 51a, 51b constituting the processing stages 41a, 41b. The other processing chambers 12 and 13 have substantially the same structure.

Sample stands 51a, 51b for supporting the wafer W
Are movably attached in the horizontal direction by hollow support shafts 52a and 52b, respectively. That is, the direction indicated by the symbol X in FIG.
It is movable in the axial direction. Each sample stand 5
Deformable bellows 53a and 53b are provided at 1a and 51b, whereby the processing chamber 11 is isolated from the outside.

Lifting shafts 54a and 54b are fitted in the hollow support shafts 52a and 52b, respectively.
Lift pins 55a, 5 for moving the wafer up and down when mounting the wafer on the sample stands 51a, 51b and removing it from the sample stands 51a, 51b are provided at the tip of 54b.
5b is provided.

If the sputtering process is performed in each of the processing chambers 11 to 13, the target material, the cathode, the anode electrode and the like are incorporated in the processing chamber.
On the other hand, if dry etching is to be performed, an electrode or the like for generating reactive gas plasma is incorporated.

FIG. 3 is a front sectional view showing a part of a multi-chamber apparatus according to another embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment, two wafers are transferred and processed in the same plane. On the other hand, in the case shown in FIG.
Two wafers are vertically shifted from each other to be transported and processed.

As shown in the figure, the transfer device 30 has two transfer hands 37a and 37b vertically displaced from each other, and these have a drive arm 34 and a transfer arm 35 similar to those shown in FIG. Driven by device 30.

On the other hand, a transfer hand 37 is provided in the processing chamber 11.
Corresponding to a and 37b, sample stands 41a and 41b are arranged vertically in two stages. In this case, there is an advantage that the horizontal space of each of the processing chambers 11 to 13, that is, the installation area can be reduced.

Although the invention made by the present inventor has been specifically described based on the embodiments, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. Needless to say.

For example, although the number of processing chambers is three in the illustrated case, the number is not limited to this and can be arbitrary. Further, in the illustrated case, two wafers as the objects to be processed are simultaneously transferred and processed, but three or more objects to be processed may be transferred and processed.

In the above description, the case where the invention made by the present inventor is mainly applied to perform the sputtering process, which is the field of use thereof, has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this and, for example, the CVD process is performed. The present invention can be applied to any case as long as it is a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus having a processing chamber, such as a case and an etching process.

[0038]

The effects obtained by the typical ones of the inventions disclosed in the present application will be briefly described as follows.
It is as follows.

(1) Since the plurality of objects to be processed are supported by the transfer device and are transferred into the plurality of processing chambers, the efficiency of transferring the objects to be processed is significantly improved.

(2) Since a plurality of objects to be processed conveyed by the transfer device are processed in the processing chamber at the same time, the processing capacity is greatly improved.

(3) As a result, it becomes possible to greatly improve the throughput of the object to be processed without increasing the area occupied by the apparatus.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing a multi-chamber apparatus that is an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front side sectional view showing a main part of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a front side sectional view showing a part of a multi-chamber apparatus which is another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 transfer chamber 11-13 processing chamber 14 load lock chamber 15-19 gate valve 20 loader 21a, 21b carrier jig 22a, 22b preheating stage 23a, 23b transfer arm 30 transfer device 31 revolution shaft 32 swivel base 33 drive shaft 34 drive Arm 35 Transfer arm 36 Support stand 37a, 37b Transfer hand 41a-43b Processing stage 44-46 Partition plate 51a, 51b Sample stand 52a, 52b Hollow support shaft 53a, 53b Bellows 54a, 54b Lifting shaft 55a, 55b Soft pin

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A transfer device for transferring an object to be processed to each of a plurality of processing chambers, the apparatus having a plurality of support portions for separately supporting the plurality of objects to be processed, the plurality of objects to be processed. A carrier device is characterized in that the carrier is simultaneously carried into each processing chamber. 2. A multi-chamber apparatus having a transfer chamber and a plurality of processing chambers which are arranged adjacent to the transfer chamber and perform different processings on the object to be processed. And a plurality of processing stages for supporting a plurality of objects to be processed in the respective processing chambers. A multi-chamber device characterized by: 3. The transfer means supports a plurality of objects to be processed in a state where they are arranged horizontally or vertically, and the processing stage in each of the processing chambers corresponds to the transfer state by the transfer means. The multi-chamber apparatus according to claim 2, wherein a plurality of objects to be processed are supported. 4. The multi-chamber apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the respective processing chambers perform the same processing on a plurality of objects to be processed. 5. The partition member for partitioning each processing chamber into a plurality corresponding to a plurality of objects to be processed is provided in each of the processing chambers.
The multi-chamber device described. 6. The transport means is adapted to support two workpieces and simultaneously transport the two workpieces to respective processing chambers.
The multi-chamber device described.