CN111180354A

CN111180354A - Wafer processing apparatus and wafer processing method

Info

Publication number: CN111180354A
Application number: CN201811347427.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 刘曦光
Original assignee: Changxin Memory Technologies Inc
Current assignee: Changxin Memory Technologies Inc
Priority date: 2018-11-13
Filing date: 2018-11-13
Publication date: 2020-05-19

Abstract

The invention provides a wafer processing device and a wafer processing method, which can prolong the opening time of opening a gate and/or closing the gate of a valve mechanism with non-adjustable gate opening and closing speed of a factory through a delay control device, so as to solve the problem of peeling of deposits on the inner wall of a cavity caused by too fast gate opening and closing on the cavity, reduce the generation of micro-dust particles on the surface of a wafer, further improve the yield of products and reduce the cleaning frequency and the production cost of machines.

Description

Wafer processing apparatus and wafer processing method

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of semiconductor production and manufacturing, in particular to wafer processing equipment and a wafer processing method.

Background

As device critical dimensions shrink, control of wafer surface contamination becomes more critical. If a pollution source such as dust particles is introduced during the production process, the circuit may be opened or broken, and therefore, in the semiconductor process manufacturing, how to avoid the pollution during the process manufacturing is a problem that must be concerned. With the improvement of the automation degree of the wafer processing equipment in production, the interaction between personnel and products is reduced, the emphasis on bringing dust particles in production is put more on the dust particles generated by the wafer processing equipment, for example, the deposit accumulated on the inner wall (including the surface of a slide holder and the like) of the equipment chamber becomes thicker along with the continuous use time or the use times of the equipment, when the accumulated deposit is thick to a certain degree, the deposit falls off under the influence of external force or self gravity to generate dust particles, and the dust particles fall on the surface of the wafer to possibly cause the failure of elements. For this reason, it is often necessary to clean the inner walls and other parts of the chamber of the wafer processing apparatus during the production process to remove the accumulated deposits, thereby preventing the contamination of the wafer due to the fall-off thereof. However, the high frequency of chamber cleaning leads to problems of reduced throughput and shortened service life of the apparatus.

In addition, in various wafer processing apparatuses, the problem of particle contamination of the thin film deposition apparatus is one of the important concerns, and referring to fig. 1A and 1B, such a machine generally includes a chamber (chamber)11 and a gate 12 for controlling the chamber 11 to open and close with respect to the outside, the opening and closing of the gate 12 is controlled by a valve mechanism 20 (e.g., a gate valve of a straight-forward type opening and closing motion), and the factory opening and closing speed of the gate 11 of the valve mechanism 20 is not adjustable, i.e., the factory opening and closing speed of the gate 12 is not adjustable by the valve mechanism 20. During the film vapor deposition process, the gate 11 is opened through the valve mechanism 20, the wafer 30 is loaded on the stage 10 in the chamber, the gate 11 is closed through the valve mechanism 20 to close the connection between the chamber and the outside to form a vacuum chamber, then the energy system (not shown) is used to introduce the energy required by the reaction (for example, the heating system is used to heat the deposition chamber) into the chamber, and the gaseous chemical gas containing atoms or molecules required for forming the film is introduced into the chamber, the chemical gas is mixed and reacted in the chamber, finally the solid film and gaseous products to be formed are gathered on the surface of the wafer 30, after the deposited film reaches the required thickness, the exhaust system of the chamber and the system is communicated to exhaust the gaseous products in the chamber and break the vacuum in the chamber, the gate 11 is opened through the valve mechanism 20 to open the chamber, and then the wafer 30 is taken out. In this thin film deposition process, in addition to forming a thin film on the surface of the wafer 30, the deposition 40 inevitably accumulates on the inner wall surface of the deposition chamber including the upper surface of the stage 10. Therefore, when the deposition time of the chamber is long or the number of times of use is large, the deposit 40 accumulated on the inner wall surface of the chamber becomes thick, and is likely to fall off to generate the fine dust particles 40a, and when the speed of opening and closing the gate 11 of the valve mechanism 20 is too high, the chamber is likely to be subjected to a large impact force, and the fine dust particles 40a are likely to fall or fly due to the impact force, and further adhere to the surface of the wafer 30, resulting in surface contamination and defects of the wafer 30, and finally reducing the yield of the product.

At present, how to reduce the particle contamination in wafer processing equipment such as thin film deposition equipment has become one of the major issues of concern in the field of semiconductor manufacturing.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a wafer processing device and a wafer processing method, which can prolong the opening time of a gate on an opening cavity of a valve mechanism with an unadjustable speed for opening and closing the gate in an original factory and/or the closing time for closing the gate so as to reduce the adhesion of dust particles on the surface of a wafer, further improve the yield of products and reduce the cleaning frequency and the production cost of a machine.

In order to solve the above technical problem, the present invention provides a wafer processing apparatus, comprising:

the wafer processing device comprises a cavity for placing wafers, wherein a gate which can be opened and closed is arranged on the side wall of the cavity;

the valve mechanism is arranged on one side of the cavity and can not adjust the speed of opening and closing the gate in the original factory, the valve mechanism comprises an air cylinder, a valve film arranged in the air cylinder, a pneumatic connecting rod connected with the valve film and a plurality of air vents communicated with the air cylinder, and the pneumatic connecting rod is connected with the gate and is used for opening and closing the gate; and the number of the first and second groups,

the delay control device is arranged at least one air vent of the valve mechanism and used for controlling the air inlet speed or the air outlet speed of the air vent so as to prolong the opening time of the valve mechanism for opening the gate and/or prolong the closing time of the valve mechanism for closing the gate.

Optionally, the delay control device is a mechanical valve with adjustable switching speed, and the mechanical valve is a needle valve, a stop valve, a gate valve, a plug valve, a ball valve or a butterfly valve.

Optionally, the delay control device is a solenoid valve or an electronic valve with a sensor.

Optionally, the delay control device prolongs the opening time of the valve mechanism for opening the gate and/or the closing time of the gate by 1s to 10 s.

Optionally, the valve mechanism further includes a valve cover disposed outside the cylinder, one end of the valve cover is fixedly connected to one end of the pneumatic connecting rod extending out of the cylinder, the other end of the valve cover is fixedly connected to the gate, when the valve cover is lifted, the gate closes the cavity, and the delay control device is disposed at the air vent for exhausting air, so as to prolong the lifting time of the valve cover, and further prolong the closing time of the valve mechanism for closing the gate.

Optionally, the wafer processing apparatus is a thin film deposition apparatus, an etching apparatus, a photolithography apparatus, an ion implantation apparatus, or a diffusion furnace apparatus.

Optionally, the cavity is a reaction chamber, a transfer chamber, a cleaning chamber, a drying chamber, or a cooling chamber.

The invention also provides a wafer processing method, which is characterized in that the wafer processing equipment is adopted to process the wafer, and when the gate on the cavity of the wafer processing equipment needs to be opened and/or closed through the valve mechanism with the speed of opening and closing the gate in the original factory, the opening time of opening the gate through the valve mechanism and/or the closing time of closing the gate through the valve mechanism of the delay control device in the wafer processing equipment is prolonged.

Optionally, the wafer processing equipment is film deposition equipment, and when a film is deposited on the surface of the wafer in the wafer processing equipment and the wafer needs to be taken out after the film deposition is completed, the opening time of opening the gate by the valve mechanism of the film deposition equipment is prolonged by the delay control device; and/or, before a film is deposited on the surface of the wafer in the wafer processing equipment, prolonging the closing time of the valve mechanism for closing the gate through the delay control device.

The invention also provides a wafer processing method, which comprises the following steps:

providing wafer processing equipment, wherein the wafer processing equipment is provided with a cavity for placing a wafer and a valve mechanism which is arranged on one side of the cavity and is not adjustable in speed of opening and closing a gate in a factory, the side wall of the cavity is provided with the gate which can be opened and closed by the valve mechanism, the valve mechanism comprises an air cylinder, a valve membrane arranged in the air cylinder, a pneumatic connecting rod connected with the valve membrane and a plurality of air vents communicated with the air cylinder, and the pneumatic connecting rod is connected with the gate and is used for opening and closing the gate;

a delay control device is additionally arranged at least one vent of the valve mechanism;

opening the gate through the valve mechanism to open the cavity, and placing a wafer to be processed into the cavity;

closing the gate through the valve mechanism to close the cavity, and processing the wafer in the cavity;

after the wafer is processed, opening the gate through the valve mechanism again to open the cavity, and taking the wafer out of the cavity;

wherein, when the gate is closed by the valve mechanism, the closing time of the gate closed by the valve mechanism is prolonged by the delay control device valve mechanism, and/or, when the gate is opened by the valve mechanism, the opening time of the gate opened by the valve mechanism is prolonged by the delay control device.

Compared with the prior art, the technical scheme of the invention has the following beneficial effects:

1. can control the speed of former factory switch gate through delay control device the speed of admitting air of the nonadjustable valve mechanism's of speed cylinder fast (pressurization control) or lose gas fast slow (release control), can control through delay control device promptly the valve mechanism opens the opening time of the gate on the cavity and/or closes the closing time of gate, for example with the closing time of gate is prolonged to 3s from 0.8s to improve because of the gate closes the problem that causes the deposit on the cavity inner wall to peel off because of the gate causes great impact force too fast to the cavity, reduce the attached of wafer surface micronic dust particle, and then improve the product yield, reduce board clearance frequency and manufacturing cost.

2. The wafer processing equipment can be directly improved with lower cost to reduce the adhesion of the surface dust particles of the wafer produced by the original wafer processing equipment, further improve the product yield, reduce the machine cleaning frequency and the production cost, and is suitable for various wafer processing machines which cannot control the speed of opening and closing a gate on a cavity by a valve of the original factory, namely, the cavity not only comprises a reaction chamber, but also comprises a conveying chamber, a cooling chamber, a cleaning chamber, a drying chamber and the like.

Drawings

Fig. 1A is a schematic view of the apparatus configuration when thin film deposition is performed by opening a shutter in a conventional thin film deposition apparatus.

FIG. 1B is a schematic view showing the structure of the apparatus when the shutter is closed after the completion of the deposition of the thin film.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a connection structure of a valve mechanism and a delay control device, in which the speed of a factory switch gate in a wafer processing apparatus is not adjustable, according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is a schematic view of the valve mechanism shown in fig. 2, showing the structure when the shutter is opened (including the air inlet and outlet direction).

Fig. 4 is a schematic view of the valve mechanism shown in fig. 2 when the shutter is closed (including the air inlet and outlet direction).

FIG. 5A is a diagram illustrating the situation of particle particles on the wafer surface detected after the gate is closed by the conventional thin film deposition apparatus;

FIG. 5B is a diagram illustrating the particle level of the wafer surface after the gate is closed;

fig. 6 is a schematic view showing a connection structure of a valve mechanism and a delay control device, in which the speed of a factory switch gate in a wafer processing apparatus according to another embodiment of the present invention is not adjustable.

Wherein the reference numbers are as follows:

10-a slide holder; 11-a cavity; 12-a gate; 20-a valve mechanism with non-adjustable speed of original plant switch gate; 200-cylinder; 200a, 200 b-air chambers; 201-valve membrane; 202-a pneumatic linkage; 203-a valve cover; 204. 205-a vent; 30-a wafer; 40-deposits on the inner walls of the chamber; 40 a-exfoliated mote particles; 50. 60-delay control means.

Detailed Description

Referring to fig. 1A and fig. 1B, the inventors found that the reason for having dust particles on the wafer surface after the film deposition is mainly: after the wafer to be film-deposited is put into the chamber 11, the closing speed of the valve mechanism 20 to close the shutter 12 is not adjustable and is too fast. When the gate 12 is closed too fast, a large impact force is directly applied to the deposition chamber (i.e., the cavity), so that the deposits 40 (i.e., the fine dust particles 40a) on the inner wall of the deposition chamber and around the stage 10 are impacted by a large external force, and fall off and fly easily, and then fall onto the surface of the wafer 30, and adhere to the surface of the wafer 30, thereby causing surface defects of the wafer 30.

The invention provides a wafer processing device and a wafer processing method, and the core idea is that a delay control device is added at a valve mechanism with an unadjustable speed for opening and closing a gate in an original factory to reduce the opening speed of the gate on a cavity opened by the valve mechanism and/or the closing speed for closing the gate, so as to prolong the opening time of the gate opened by the valve mechanism and/or the closing time for closing the gate, and avoid the problem that the switch of the gate causes larger impact force on the cavity, thereby reducing the problem that sediment on the inner wall of the cavity falls off and flies to the surface of a wafer to be attached due to the impact of larger external force, further improving the yield of products, and reducing the cleaning frequency of a machine station and the production cost.

The present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings in order to make the objects and features of the present invention more comprehensible, however, the present invention may be realized in various forms and should not be limited to the embodiments described above. It is to be noted that the drawings are in a very simplified form and are not to precise scale, which is merely for the purpose of facilitating and distinctly claiming the embodiments of the present invention.

Referring to fig. 2 and fig. 3, an embodiment of the invention provides a wafer processing apparatus, including: a chamber 11 for placing a wafer, a valve mechanism 20 whose speed of opening and closing a gate is not adjustable in a factory, and a delay control device 50. The side wall of the chamber 11 (which may be a bottom wall or a top wall or a side wall between the bottom wall and the top wall) is provided with a gate 12 capable of being opened and closed. The shutter 12 may be a shutter that is opened and closed by a straight line, a shutter that is opened and closed by a rocker arm, or the like. The valve mechanism 20 is a valve that is provided on one side of the chamber and can perform opening and closing operations of the shutter 12. In this embodiment, the valve mechanism 20 is a valve mechanism capable of performing a straight-forward opening and closing operation, and includes a cylinder 200, a valve film 201, a pneumatic link 202, a valve cover 203, and two

air ports

204 and 205, the valve film 201 is disposed in a horizontal direction to divide the cylinder 200 into upper and

lower air chambers

200a and 200b, the air port 204 is disposed on one side of the air chamber 200b and communicates with the air chamber 200b, and the air port 205 is disposed on one side of the air chamber 200a and communicates with the air chamber 200 a. The valve cover 203 is arranged outside the cylinder 200, one end of the pneumatic connecting rod 202 is fixedly connected with the valve film 201, the other end of the pneumatic connecting rod 202 is fixedly connected with the valve cover 203 and used for realizing linkage between the valve film 201 and the valve cover 203, and the other end of the valve cover 203 is fixedly connected with the gate 12 and used for driving the gate 12 to be opened and closed. When the valve cover 203 is lifted, the gate 12 is closed to close the cavity 11, and when the valve cover 203 is lowered, the gate 12 is opened to open the cavity 11. The vent 204 is used for air intake when the valve mechanism 20 opens the gate 12, and for air discharge (i.e., air discharge) when the valve mechanism 20 closes the gate valve, the vent 205 is used for air discharge (i.e., air discharge) when the valve mechanism 20 opens the gate 12, and for air intake when the valve mechanism 20 closes the gate valve, and the delay control device 50 is provided on the vent 204 and is used for prolonging the closing time of the valve mechanism 20 closing the gate 12. Wherein, a valve cover 203 is arranged between the pneumatic connecting rod 202 and the gate 12, which is beneficial to the maintenance and replacement of the gate 12 and the valve mechanism 20. Of course, in other embodiments of the present invention, the valve cover 203 may be omitted and the gate 12 may be directly connected to the pneumatic link 202.

When a wafer needs to be processed by the wafer processing apparatus, a wafer needs to be placed in the cavity, at this time, the gate 12 needs to be opened by the valve mechanism 20 to open the cavity 11, referring to fig. 3, at this time, the air inlet 204 admits air, the air outlet 205 admits air (i.e., discharges air), and the delay control device 50 may not be actuated at this time, that is, the valve mechanism 20 is kept to open the original opening speed of the gate 12, the air inlet 204 admits air to increase the air pressure in the air chamber 200a, so that the valve film 201 drives the pneumatic connecting rod 202 to move downward, the valve cover 203 falls down, the gate 12 enters an open state (i.e., is opened), so that the cavity 11 is communicated with the outside, and the wafer can be placed in. Then, the chamber 11 needs to be closed to form a vacuum environment capable of depositing a thin film on the wafer, referring to fig. 4, at this time, the air inlet 205 is needed to enter air, the air outlet 204 is exhausted (i.e. air is exhausted), at this time, the delay control device 50 operates to slow down the air outlet speed (or referred to as air release speed) of the air inlet 204, so as to make the valve film 201 slowly move toward the air chamber 200a, the valve film 201 drives the pneumatic link 202 to slowly move upward, so that the valve cover 203 slowly rises, the gate 12 is slowly closed, and finally the chamber 11 is closed, so that the chamber 11 becomes a closed space, i.e. in this process, the delay control device 50 slows down the original closing speed of the valve mechanism 20 for closing the gate 12, prolongs the closing time of the gate 12, for example, extends from the original 0.8s to 1s to 10s, so that the impact force of the gate 12 and, the original dust particles on the inner wall of the cavity 11 are not subjected to large impact force due to the closing action of the gate 12, and can be continuously and firmly adhered to the wall of the cavity, namely, the dust particles cannot fall or fly to the surface of the wafer in the closing process of the gate 12, so that the surface defects of the wafer can be reduced. Then, a vacuum pump (not shown) connected to the chamber 111 is used to pump air, so as to form a pressure difference between the chamber 11 and the outside, wherein the pressure difference ranges from zero to one atmosphere (1atm or 760torr), for example, when the pressure difference is one atmosphere, the chamber 11 is a vacuum chamber. After the deposition of the thin film on the wafer is completed, the pressure inside the chamber 11 may be brought close to the atmospheric pressure by an exhaust system (not shown) of the wafer processing apparatus, a vacuum pump, and the like, and then the gate 12 may be opened again by the valve mechanism 20, so as to open the chamber 11 to take out the wafer.

In other embodiments of the present invention, in the process of opening the gate 12 by the valve mechanism 20, the delay control device 50 may also operate to control the intake speed of the air vent 204 to decrease through the delay control device 50, so that the opening speed of the valve mechanism 20 for opening the gate 12 is slowed, and the opening time of the gate 12 is further prolonged, and the prolonged opening time is, for example, 1s to 10s, so as to avoid the problem that the dust particles on the inner wall of the cavity 11 are subjected to a larger impact force due to too fast opening of the valve mechanism 20, and further to improve the problem that the dust particles on the inner wall of the cavity fall off and fly to the surface of the wafer placed in the cavity 11.

In the above embodiment, the delay control device 50 may be used only to extend the closing time of the valve mechanism 20 to close the shutter 12, or may be used to extend both the opening time of the valve mechanism 20 to open the shutter 12 and the closing time of the valve mechanism 20 to close the shutter 12. In other embodiments of the invention, the delay control device 50 may be used only to extend the opening time of the valve mechanism 20 to open the gate 12.

Optionally, the delay control device 50 is a mechanical valve with adjustable switching speed to reduce cost, and the mechanical valve is a needle valve, a stop valve, a gate valve, a plug valve, a ball valve or a butterfly valve. The delay control device 50 may also be an electromagnetic valve or an electronic valve with a sensor, and may be directly controlled by the controller of the wafer processing apparatus itself, so as to improve the control accuracy of the extended time and the automation degree of the wafer processing apparatus.

The wafer processing apparatus of this embodiment may be a thin film deposition apparatus, an etching apparatus, a lithography apparatus, an ion implantation apparatus, or a diffusion furnace apparatus, and correspondingly, the cavity may be a reaction chamber such as a deposition chamber, an etching chamber, an ion implantation chamber, a furnace chamber, an exposure chamber, or may be a transfer chamber, a cleaning chamber, a drying chamber, or a cooling chamber. The thin film deposition apparatus is, for example, a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) apparatus or a Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) apparatus, the chemical vapor deposition apparatus is, for example, a Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) apparatus or a Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) apparatus, and the physical vapor deposition apparatus is, for example, a sputtering apparatus or an evaporation apparatus.

According to the wafer processing equipment, the opening time of the valve mechanism 20 for opening the gate 12 is prolonged, and/or the closing time of the valve mechanism 20 for closing the gate 12 is prolonged, so that the problem that the micro-dust particles on the inner wall of the cavity are subjected to larger impact force due to too fast opening and/or too fast closing of the gate 12 can be avoided, and the problem that the micro-dust particles on the inner wall of the cavity fall off and fly can be solved, so that the wafer surface defect caused by the attachment of the micro-dust particles on the inner wall of the cavity to the surface of the wafer is reduced, and meanwhile, whether the machine needs to be cleaned can be influenced by the surface defect condition of the wafer produced by the wafer processing equipment. The wafer processing equipment can be suitable for the condition that equipment manufacturers assemble the delay control device before the wafer processing equipment leaves a factory, and can also be suitable for the condition that equipment is improved on the basis of the original wafer processing equipment in an integrated circuit manufacturing factory.

Therefore, in the case where the equipment manufacturer performs the assembly of the delay control device before shipping the wafer processing equipment, the present invention provides a wafer processing method based on a new wafer processing equipment with the delay control device, wherein when the gate on the chamber of the wafer processing equipment needs to be opened and/or closed by a valve mechanism with an unadjustable gate opening and closing speed in the factory, the opening time of the valve mechanism for opening the gate and/or the closing time of the gate is prolonged by the delay control device in the wafer processing equipment.

In an embodiment of the present invention, when the wafer processing apparatus is a thin film deposition apparatus, the wafer processing method is a thin film deposition method, and referring to fig. 3 and 4, the method specifically includes the following steps:

first, the gate 12 is opened by the valve mechanism 20 of the wafer processing apparatus (i.e. the speed of opening and closing the gate in the factory is not adjustable) to open the cavity 11, in the process of opening the gate 12, the air inlet 204 of the valve mechanism 20 is filled with air, the air outlet 205 is filled with air (i.e. air is exhausted), the change of air pressure in the

air chambers

200a and 200b causes the valve film 201 to drive the pneumatic link 202 to move downwards, so that the valve cover 203 falls, the gate 12 is opened at the opening speed in the factory, and finally is completely opened, and the cavity 11 is communicated with the outside.

Then, a wafer is placed in the chamber 11.

Then, the gate 12 is closed by the valve mechanism 20, in the process of closing the gate 12, the vent 204 of the valve mechanism 20 is deflated, the vent 205 is inflated (air), and the delay control device 50 controls the deflation speed of the vent 204 to be reduced, the change of the air pressure in the

air chambers

200a and 200b causes the valve film 201 to drive the pneumatic link 202 to move upwards, so that the valve cover 203 is lifted, the gate 12 enters a closed state, and the cavity 11 is disconnected from the outside to become a closed space. Because the air release speed of the air vent 204 is reduced by the delay control device 50, the upward movement speed of the valve film 201 is reduced, and further the closing time of the gate 12 is prolonged, for example, the closing time of the gate 12 is prolonged from 0.8s to 1s to 10s, so that the problem that the micro-dust particles on the inner wall of the cavity fall off or fly due to a large impact force caused by too fast closing of the gate 12 can be avoided, and the problem that the surface defects of the wafer are caused by the attachment of the micro-dust particles on the inner wall of the cavity to the surface of the wafer placed in the cavity is further improved.

Then, the chamber 11 is vacuumized, heated, etc., and further, a gaseous chemical gas containing atoms or molecules required for forming a thin film is introduced into the chamber 11, and the chemical gas is mixed and reacted in the chamber 11, and finally, a solid thin film and a gaseous product which are desired to be formed are formed on the surface of the wafer in an aggregation manner.

And then, after the film to be deposited reaches the required thickness, exhausting through an exhaust system of the wafer processing equipment so as to restore the pressure in the cavity to the atmospheric pressure.

Finally, the gate 12 is opened again by the valve mechanism 20 to open the chamber, and the wafer having the desired film deposited on the surface is taken out.

Preferably, in the above process, when the gate 12 is opened by the valve mechanism 20, the air intake speed of the air vent 204 is controlled to decrease by the delay control device 50, so as to slow down the downward movement speed of the valve film 201, and further to prolong the opening time of the gate 12, for example, to prolong the opening time of the gate 12 from 0.8s to 1s to 10s, so as to avoid the problem that the dust particles on the inner wall of the chamber fall off or fly due to a large impact force applied to the dust particles, and further to improve the problem that the dust particles on the inner wall of the chamber adhere to the surface of the wafer placed in the chamber, and thus the surface defect of the wafer is caused.

In a case where a wafer processing apparatus in an integrated circuit fab is modified based on an existing wafer processing apparatus, an embodiment of the present invention provides a wafer processing method, which can modify the wafer processing apparatus in the fab before performing wafer processing, add a delay control device to the wafer processing apparatus, and then perform wafer processing. Referring to fig. 2 to 4, the wafer processing method specifically includes the following steps:

firstly, providing a wafer processing device, wherein the wafer processing device is provided with a cavity 11 for placing a wafer and a valve mechanism 20 which is arranged on one side of the cavity and is not adjustable in speed of opening and closing a gate in a factory, the side wall of the cavity 11 is provided with a gate 12 which can be opened and closed, the valve mechanism 20 is used for controlling the opening and closing of the gate 12 so as to control the opening and closing of the cavity 11 and the outside, the valve mechanism 20 comprises a cylinder 200, a valve membrane 201 arranged in the cylinder 200, a pneumatic connecting rod 202 connected with the valve membrane 201 and a plurality of vent holes 204 and 205 communicated with the cylinder 200, and the pneumatic connecting rod 202 is directly connected with or indirectly connected with the gate 12 through a valve cover 203 and is used for opening and closing the gate 12;

next, adding a delay control device 50 to at least one of the vents (204 or 205) of the valve mechanism 20;

then, the gate 12 is opened through the valve mechanism 20 to open the chamber 11, and a wafer to be processed is placed in the chamber 11, and the specific process can be referred to above and is not described herein again;

then, the gate 12 is closed by the valve mechanism 20 to close the cavity 11, and the wafer is processed in the cavity 11, and the specific process may refer to the above description and is not described herein again;

after the processing is completed, the gate 12 is opened through the valve mechanism 20 to open the cavity 11, and the wafer is taken out of the cavity 11, and the specific process may refer to the above description, which is not described herein again.

In the above wafer processing method, when the gate 12 is closed by the valve mechanism 20, the delay control device 50 extends the closing time of the valve mechanism 20 for closing the gate 12, and/or when the gate 12 is opened by the valve mechanism 20, the delay control device 50 extends the opening time of the valve mechanism 20 for opening the gate 12.

Referring to fig. 5A and 5B, in order to further verify the technical effect of the solution of the present invention, a thin film deposition apparatus having a valve mechanism with an adjustable speed for opening and closing a gate in a factory and a gate controlled by the valve mechanism is first used to perform thin film deposition on a plurality of wafers, after each wafer is placed in a cavity, the gate on the cavity needs to be closed by the valve mechanism, and the closing time of the valve mechanism is 0.8s, then the surfaces of the wafers subjected to thin film deposition are subjected to fine dust particle detection, and the detection result is as shown in fig. 5A, where the condition of fine dust particles on the surfaces of a plurality of wafers (i.e. the data of the fine dust particles exceeds the upper pipe manufacturing line) is seriously exceeded. When we add a delay control device at the valve mechanism of the thin film deposition equipment whose original plant opening and closing gate speed is not adjustable and the delay control device is only used for prolonging the closing time of the valve mechanism closing gate to 3s, namely, the film deposition equipment with the delay control device is adopted to deposit films on a plurality of wafers, after each wafer is placed in the chamber, the valve mechanism is also required to close the gate on the chamber, and the closing time for the valve mechanism to close the gate is 3s, and then, the surface of the wafer subjected to the film deposition is detected by the dust particle detection, and the detection result is shown in fig. 5B, the dust particle conditions on all the surfaces of the wafer reach the standard (i.e. are all below the upper production line), the dust particles on the surface of each wafer are few, the rejection rate of the wafers is greatly reduced, and the yield of the wafers is greatly improved. Therefore, the wafer processing equipment and the wafer processing method have simple design, and can greatly reduce the generation of the micro-dust particles on the surface of the wafer by only adding the delay control device at the valve mechanism with the non-adjustable speed of opening and closing the gate in the original factory to prolong the opening time of the valve mechanism for opening the gate and/or the closing time of the valve mechanism for closing the gate, thereby improving the product yield and reducing the cleaning frequency and the production cost of a machine.

It should be noted that, in the above embodiments, one delay control device 50 is taken as an example for illustration, but the technical solution of the present invention is not limited thereto, and in some cases, the control of the gas inlet and outlet speed of a single vent cannot meet the requirement of the whole valve mechanism for prolonging the opening time and the closing time of the gate, so in other embodiments of the present invention, referring to fig. 6, when the valve mechanism 20 has a plurality of

vents

204, 205, one delay control device may be arranged at each vent to control (reduce) the gas inlet and outlet speed at each vent, for example, the valve mechanism 20 includes two

vents

204, 205, one delay control device 50 is arranged at the vent 204 to control the gas inlet speed and the gas outlet speed of the vent 204, another delay control device 60 is arranged at the vent 205, for port control of the inlet and outlet velocities of the vent 205 to achieve extended control of the valve mechanism 20 opening time of the gate and/or closing time of the gate in cooperation with the delay control device 50 and the delay control device 60.

In addition, in each of the above embodiments, the case where the cavity communicates with the outside when the valve mechanism 20 opens the gate and the case where the cavity is disconnected from the outside when the valve mechanism 20 closes the gate has been described as an example, but the technical solution of the present invention is not limited to this, and in other embodiments of the present invention, the gate may be a reverse gate, that is, the cavity communicates with the outside when the valve mechanism 20 closes the gate and the cavity is disconnected from the outside when the valve mechanism 20 opens the gate.

The above description is only for the purpose of describing the preferred embodiments of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the scope of the present invention, and any variations and modifications made by those skilled in the art based on the above disclosure are within the scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. A wafer processing apparatus, comprising:

2. The wafer processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the delay control device is a mechanical valve with adjustable switching speed, and the mechanical valve is a needle valve, a stop valve, a gate valve, a plug valve, a ball valve or a butterfly valve.

3. The wafer processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the delay control device is a solenoid valve or an electronic valve with a sensor.

4. The wafer processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the delay control device extends an opening time for the valve mechanism to open the shutter and/or a closing time for the shutter by 1s to 10 s.

5. The wafer processing apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the valve mechanism further includes a valve cover disposed outside the cylinder, one end of the valve cover is fixedly connected to an end of the pneumatic link rod extending outside the cylinder, the other end of the valve cover is fixedly connected to the gate, when the valve cover is lifted, the gate closes the cavity, and the delay control device is disposed at the vent for exhausting gas to prolong a time for the valve cover to be lifted, thereby prolonging a time for the valve mechanism to close the gate.

6. The wafer processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the wafer processing apparatus is a thin film deposition apparatus, an etching apparatus, a photolithography apparatus, an ion implantation apparatus, or a diffusion furnace apparatus.

7. The wafer processing apparatus of any of claims 1 to 6, wherein the cavity is a reaction chamber, a transfer chamber, a cleaning chamber, a drying chamber, or a cooling chamber.

8. A wafer processing method, wherein a wafer is processed by using the wafer processing apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 7, and when it is necessary to open and/or close a shutter on a chamber of the wafer processing apparatus by a valve mechanism whose speed at which a shutter is opened and closed in the factory, the opening time of the valve mechanism for opening the shutter is extended and/or the closing time of the valve mechanism for closing the shutter is extended by the delay control device valve mechanism in the wafer processing apparatus.

9. The wafer processing method according to claim 8, wherein the wafer processing apparatus is a thin film deposition apparatus, and when a thin film is deposited on the surface of the wafer in the wafer processing apparatus and the wafer needs to be taken out after the thin film deposition is completed, the opening time of the valve mechanism of the thin film deposition apparatus for opening the gate is extended by the delay control device; and/or, the closing time of the valve mechanism for closing the gate is prolonged by the delay control device before the wafer is placed in the wafer processing equipment and the film is deposited on the surface of the wafer.

10. A method of wafer processing, comprising: