CN218333740U

CN218333740U - Wafer supporting mechanism and semiconductor processing equipment

Info

Publication number: CN218333740U
Application number: CN202222130076.9U
Authority: CN
Inventors: 唐鹏; 张涛; 陈波
Original assignee: Beijing Naura Microelectronics Equipment Co Ltd
Current assignee: Beijing Naura Microelectronics Equipment Co Ltd
Priority date: 2022-08-12
Filing date: 2022-08-12
Publication date: 2023-01-17
Anticipated expiration: 2032-08-12

Abstract

The application discloses wafer supporting mechanism and semiconductor processing equipment, wafer supporting mechanism are applied to wafer chamber of keeping in, include: a lifting support; the lifting mechanism is connected with the lifting bracket and is used for driving the lifting bracket to do lifting motion; at least two sets of supporting components, the interval sets up on the lifting support, supporting component include connecting portion, and two with connecting portion are connected and at the bracket of vertical direction interval setting, be equipped with at least one height adjustment structure on the bracket for support the wafer at predetermined height and keep the level. When the wafer is placed on the wafer supporting mechanism, the wafer is supported on the height adjusting structure, the wafer and the height adjusting structure are in point contact, the height of each contact point can be adjusted in advance through the height adjusting structure to achieve leveling of the wafer, and the leveling precision is high.

Description

Wafer supporting mechanism and semiconductor processing equipment

Technical Field

The application relates to the technical field of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, in particular to a wafer supporting mechanism and semiconductor processing equipment.

Background

In the wafer processing process, after a stage of process is completed on a wafer, the wafer sometimes needs to be transferred onto a wafer supporting mechanism of a temporary storage chamber, and the wafer is easy to slide due to the difference of levelness of the wafer supporting mechanism, so that scratches appear on the back surface of the wafer.

An existing wafer supporting mechanism bears a wafer through a supporting component arranged on a lifting support, and due to the fact that the requirement for the levelness of the wafer is high, when the levelness of the wafer is not enough and needs to be adjusted, only a jackscrew at the joint of the lifting support and the lifting mechanism can be adjusted, and then the inclination angle of the lifting support is adjusted to achieve leveling of the wafer.

Because the wafer and the lifting support are in surface contact and the lifting support is deformed to a certain degree, the leveling precision of the wafer supporting mechanism with the existing structure is poor.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

In view of the above technical problems, the present application provides a wafer supporting mechanism and a semiconductor processing apparatus, which can improve the problem of poor leveling precision of the existing wafer supporting mechanism.

In order to solve the above technical problem, in a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a wafer supporting mechanism, which is applied to a temporary wafer storage chamber, and the wafer supporting mechanism includes:

a lifting support;

the lifting mechanism is connected with the lifting bracket and is used for driving the lifting bracket to do lifting motion;

at least two sets of supporting components, the interval sets up on the lifting support, supporting component include connecting portion, and two with connecting portion connect and at the bracket of vertical direction interval setting, be equipped with at least one height adjustment structure on the bracket for support wafer and regulation the levelness of wafer.

Optionally, the bracket is provided with a connecting hole;

the height adjustment structure includes:

the adjusting nail is in threaded connection with the connecting hole;

the locking piece is sleeved on the outer side of the adjusting nail and used for locking the adjusting nail after the adjusting nail is connected to a target position in the connecting hole;

and the supporting cap is sleeved at the top end of the adjusting nail.

Optionally, the adjusting nail is further provided with an exhaust hole longitudinally penetrating through the adjusting nail.

Optionally, the support assembly is integrally molded.

Optionally, the bracket includes a first supporting portion and a second supporting portion connected to each other, and a projection of the bracket on a horizontal plane is in a V shape, and the height adjusting structure is disposed on each of the first supporting portion and the second supporting portion.

Optionally, the first bracket is positioned above the two brackets, and the second bracket is positioned below the two brackets;

the included angle between the first supporting part and the second supporting part of the first bracket is 60 +/-20 degrees; and/or

The included angle between the first supporting part and the second supporting part of the second bracket is 95 +/-15 degrees.

Optionally, the height adjusting structures on the first bracket are arranged on the same circumference; and/or

The height adjusting structures on the second bracket are arranged on the same circumference.

Optionally, the first supporting portion and the second supporting portion are respectively provided with a first lightening hole.

Optionally, the lifting bracket includes a semi-annular portion and a connecting plate extending outward along the semi-annular portion, and the lifting mechanism is connected to the connecting plate;

the connecting plate divides the semi-annular part into a first part and a second part at the connecting position of the semi-annular part, and the arc length of the first part is greater than that of the second part;

the connecting plate is in transition connection with the first part through a convex arc;

the connecting plate and the second part are in transition connection through a concave arc.

Optionally, bosses are respectively arranged on the top surface of the semi-annular part close to the two ends of the semi-annular part;

the supporting component is connected to the top surface of the boss;

and a second lightening hole is formed in the position, located on the boss, of the lifting support.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application further provides a semiconductor processing apparatus, which includes a temporary wafer storage chamber, wherein the wafer support mechanism is disposed in the temporary wafer storage chamber.

As mentioned above, the wafer supporting mechanism of the application comprises a lifting support and at least two groups of supporting components arranged on the top surface of the lifting support at intervals, wherein each supporting component comprises a connecting part and two brackets connected with the connecting parts and arranged at intervals in the vertical direction, and the top surface of each bracket is provided with at least one height adjusting structure for supporting wafers and adjusting the levelness of the wafers. When the wafer is placed on the wafer supporting mechanism, the wafer is supported on the height adjusting structure, the wafer and the height adjusting structure are in point contact, the height of each contact point can be adjusted in advance through the height adjusting structure so as to achieve leveling of the wafer, and the leveling precision is high.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments consistent with the application and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the application. In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, the drawings needed to be used in the description of the embodiments will be briefly described below, and it is obvious for those skilled in the art to obtain other drawings based on these drawings without inventive exercise.

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a wafer supporting mechanism according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 2 is a schematic cross-sectional structural diagram of a height adjustment structure provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 3 is a schematic perspective view of a bracket according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a schematic top view of a bracket according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating a top view of a wafer supporting mechanism according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a lifting bracket provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 isbase:Sub>A schematic sectional view taken along linebase:Sub>A-base:Sub>A of fig. 6.

The implementation, functional features and advantages of the objectives of the present application will be further explained with reference to the accompanying drawings. Specific embodiments of the present application have been shown by way of example in the drawings and will be described in more detail below. These drawings and written description are not intended to limit the scope of the inventive concepts in any manner, but rather to illustrate the inventive concepts to those skilled in the art by reference to specific embodiments.

Detailed Description

Reference will now be made in detail to the exemplary embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. When the following description refers to the accompanying drawings, like numbers in different drawings represent the same or similar elements unless otherwise indicated. The embodiments described in the following exemplary embodiments do not represent all embodiments consistent with the present application. Rather, they are merely examples of apparatus and methods consistent with certain aspects of the present application, as detailed in the appended claims.

It should be noted that, in this document, the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Without further limitation, the recitation of a claim "comprising a" 8230a "\8230means" does not exclude the presence of additional identical elements in the process, method, article or apparatus in which the element is incorporated, and further, similarly named components, features, elements in different embodiments of the application may have the same meaning or may have different meanings, the specific meaning of which should be determined by its interpretation in the specific embodiment or by further combination with the context of the specific embodiment.

It will be further understood that the terms "comprises," "comprising," "includes" and/or "including," when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, steps, operations, elements, components, items, species, and/or groups, but do not preclude the presence, or addition of one or more other features, steps, operations, elements, components, items, species, and/or groups thereof. The terms "or," "and/or," "including at least one of the following," and the like, as used herein, are to be construed as inclusive or mean any one or any combination. For example, "includes at least one of: A. b, C "means" any of the following: a; b; c; a and B; a and C; b and C; a and B and C ", by way of further example," a, B or C "or" a, B and/or C "means" any of the following: a; b; c; a and B; a and C; b and C; a and B and C'. An exception to this definition will occur only when a combination of elements, functions, steps or operations are inherently mutually exclusive in some way.

It should be understood that although the terms first, second, third, etc. may be used herein to describe various information, such information should not be limited to these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one type of information from another. For example, first information may also be referred to as second information, and similarly, second information may also be referred to as first information, without departing from the scope herein. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, depending on the context, unless the context indicates otherwise.

It will be understood that the terms "top," "bottom," "upper," "lower," "vertical," "horizontal," and the like are used herein to denote an orientation or positional relationship, based on the orientation or positional relationship shown in the drawings, for convenience in describing the present application and to simplify the description, and are not intended to indicate or imply that the apparatus so referred to must have a particular orientation, be constructed and operated in a particular orientation, and are not to be construed as limiting the present application.

Referring to fig. 1, fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a wafer supporting mechanism, which may be applied to a temporary wafer storage chamber according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, and includes a lifting frame 10, a lifting mechanism 20, a supporting assembly 30, and a height adjusting structure 40.

The lifting mechanism 20 is connected with the lifting support 10 and is used for driving the lifting support 10 to do lifting movement. As an example, the lifting mechanism 20 may include a supporting base 21 and a lifting shaft 22 connected to the supporting base 21, and the lifting shaft 22 may perform a lifting motion with respect to the supporting base 21. In order to ensure the sealing performance of the temporary wafer storage chamber, a bellows 23 may be further disposed outside the lifting shaft 22, and the bellows 23 is connected between the lifting bracket 10 and the supporting base 21 to ensure the sealing performance at the connection between the supporting base 21 and the lifting shaft 22 when the lifting shaft 22 moves.

At least two sets of support assemblies 30 are disposed and spaced apart on the lifting support 10 for supporting the wafer from at least two positions, and fig. 1 illustrates that two sets of support assemblies 30 are disposed, or more than two sets of support assemblies may be disposed. The support assembly 30 includes a connecting portion 31 and two brackets 32 (a first bracket 32A located above and a second bracket 32B located below), and the two brackets 32 are connected to the connecting portion 31, respectively, and are spaced apart in the vertical direction. It can be understood that, a station of keeping in is constituteed to the bracket 32 that is in same height, for example two first brackets 32A constitute first station of keeping in, the station of keeping in is constituteed to two second brackets 32B, can use first station of keeping in when transmitting the wafer, the station of keeping in is used for putting at the wafer of treating the refrigerated, elevating system 20 drives lifting support 10 and descends certain height of predetermineeing after, the height that passes the piece is just in time descended to first station of keeping in, can pass the piece to the wafer, the station of keeping in is just in time descended to the height of cooling water dish to the second, can cool off the wafer on the station of keeping in is kept in to the second. Each bracket 32 is provided with at least one height adjusting structure 40, when a wafer is placed on the support assembly 30, the wafer is supported on the height adjusting structure 40, the height of the height adjusting structure 40 in the vertical direction is adjustable, and the height adjusting structures 40 can be adjusted to the same horizontal plane in advance, so that the wafer can be supported at a preset height and kept horizontal, and the adjustment of the wafer levelness is realized.

It should be noted that, the height adjustment structures 40 disposed on the top surface of the bracket 32 may be one, two, or more, and the bracket 32 with the same height may have only one height adjustment structure 40 disposed on the top surface of one part, and two or more height adjustment structures 40 disposed on the top surface of another part of the bracket 32, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application. In the above various schemes, it is preferable that the total number of the height adjusting structures 40 arranged on the surface of the bracket 32 with the same height is greater than or equal to three, so as to form three-point support for the wafer, and the inclination angle of the wafer can be adjusted by adjusting any one of the height adjusting structures 40, so as to level the wafer in any direction at three points. Preferably, when the support assemblies 30 are provided in two sets, two height adjusting structures 40 are respectively disposed on two brackets 32 at the same height, so as to support the wafer at four points, so that the support is more stable, and the wafer can be leveled at any direction at four points.

The wafer supporting mechanism of the embodiment of the application comprises a lifting support 10 and at least two groups of supporting components 30 arranged on the top surface of the lifting support 10 at intervals, wherein each supporting component comprises a connecting part 31 and two brackets 32 connected with the connecting parts 31 and arranged at intervals in the vertical direction, and the top surface of each bracket 32 is provided with at least one height adjusting structure 40 for adjusting the height of a wafer when the wafer is supported on the height adjusting structure 40. When the wafer is placed on the wafer supporting mechanism, the wafer is supported on the height adjusting structure 40, the wafer and the height adjusting structure are in point contact, the height of each contact point can be adjusted through the height adjusting structure 40 to achieve leveling of the wafer, and the leveling precision is high.

As an example, please refer to fig. 2, wherein fig. 2 is a schematic cross-sectional structural diagram of a height adjustment structure according to an embodiment of the present application. Wherein, the bracket 32 is provided with a connecting hole 33. The height adjusting structure 40 includes an adjusting nail 41, a locking member 42, and a support cap 43. The adjusting nail 41 is in threaded connection with the connecting hole 33, the top end of the adjusting nail 41 protrudes out of the top surface of the bracket 32, and the supporting cap 43 is sleeved on the top end of the adjusting nail 41, for example, the supporting cap 43 can be in small clearance fit with the adjusting nail 41, and the supporting cap 43 can be a quartz cap. The locking member 42 is sleeved outside the adjusting nail 41 and is used for locking the adjusting nail 41 after the adjusting nail 41 is connected to a target position in the connecting hole 33, and the locking member 42 may be a nut matched with the adjusting nail 41.

For example, when the adjustment pins 41 are rotated to raise or lower the adjustment pins 41 relative to the connection holes 33, the support caps 43 are passively raised or lowered under the action of the adjustment pins 41 to level the wafer, and after the wafer is leveled, the adjustment pins 41 are locked by the locking members 42 to prevent the adjustment pins 41 from loosening in the connection holes 33 due to vibration and affecting the stability of the wafer support.

Since a vacuum may be formed in the space 44 between the support cap 43 and the adjustment pin 41, the support cap 43 may have an internal and external pressure difference, and the support cap 43 may be heated to have a crack risk due to a difference in expansion coefficient. In order to avoid the vacuum formed in the space 44 between the support cap 43 and the adjustment pin 41, an air vent 411 may be further disposed on the adjustment pin 41, wherein the air vent 411 longitudinally penetrates through the adjustment pin 41. The vent hole 411 may allow the pressure in the space 44 between the support cap 43 and the adjustment nail 41 to be uniform to the outside.

In one embodiment, the support assembly 30 is integrally formed, so as to avoid assembly tolerance of the two brackets 32 and the connecting portion 31, and to make the brackets 32 at the same height be located on the same horizontal plane as much as possible.

As an example, please refer to fig. 3 and 4, fig. 3 is a schematic perspective view of a bracket according to an embodiment of the present application, and fig. 4 is a schematic top view of the bracket according to the embodiment of the present application. The upper one of the two brackets 32 is named as a first bracket 32A, the lower one is named as a second bracket 32B, each bracket 32 comprises a first supporting part 321 and a second supporting part 322 which are connected with each other, the height adjusting structure 40 is arranged on each of the first supporting part 321 and the second supporting part 322, and the projection of each bracket 32 on the horizontal plane is in a V shape. The V-shaped bracket 32 can not only stably support the wafer, but also reduce the weight of the mechanism to the maximum extent and avoid the influence of the self gravity on the levelness of the wafer caused by the deformation of the supporting mechanism. Preferably, the first support portion 321 and the second support portion 322 are respectively provided with first lightening holes 34. The number, shape and arrangement of the first lightening holes 34 are not limited as long as the deformability of the bracket 32 is not significantly affected.

As an example, with continued reference to fig. 4, the included angle between the first supporting portion 321 and the second supporting portion 322 of the first bracket 32A may be 60 ± 20 °; the angle between the first and

second support portions

321 and 322 of the second bracket 32B may be 95 ± 15 °. The upper and lower two-layer station adopts different contained angles to support, is convenient for measure the height of station in the debugging stage, improves debugging efficiency. As a preferred example, the top surface of each bracket 32 is provided with two height adjusting structures 40, and are respectively located on the first and second supporting

parts

321 and 322.

Further, referring to fig. 5, fig. 5 is a schematic top view of a wafer supporting mechanism according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in which the height adjusting structures 40 on the first bracket 32A may be disposed on the same circumference; the height adjustment structures 40 on the second bracket 32B may also be arranged on the same circumference. Preferably, the height adjusting structures 40 on the surfaces of all the brackets 32 are located on the same circumference, so that the supporting positions of the height adjusting structures 40 on the wafer are fixed in the annular area of the edge of the wafer, and the scratch defect caused by the support of the functional area of the wafer is avoided.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the lifting support 10 may be a ring support. Preferably, in an embodiment, please refer to fig. 1 and 6, and fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a lifting support provided in an embodiment of the present application, in which the lifting support 10 is a semi-annular support, and compared with a complete annular support, the semi-annular support can reduce the weight of the lifting support 10, so as to reduce the deformation of the lifting support 10 due to its own weight and reduce the influence on the wafer levelness. As an example, two sets of supporting members 30 may be disposed on the semi-annular lifting frame 10, and the two sets of supporting members 30 are disposed near two ends of the lifting frame 10, respectively.

In practical applications, the lifting mechanism 20 cannot be directly connected to the middle point of the lifting frame 10. As an example, referring to fig. 5, the lifting bracket 10 includes a semi-annular portion 12 and a connecting plate 13 extending outward along the semi-annular portion 12, the lifting mechanism 20 is connected to the connecting plate 13, and the lifting driving force acts on the connecting plate 13. The connection plate 13 divides the semi-annular portion into a first portion 121 and a second portion 122 at the connection position of the semi-annular portion 12, the arc length of the first portion 121 being greater than the arc length of said second portion 122, i.e. the connection plate 13 is not centrally located in the semi-annular portion 12. The connecting plate 13 is in transition connection with the first part 121 through a convex arc A1; the connecting plate 13 is transitionally connected with the second part 122 through a concave arc A2. Lead to connecting plate 13 and semi-annular portion 12 transitional coupling through convex arc A1 and concave arc A2 respectively, can make the focus of lifting support 10 be closer to the stress point, reduce lifting support 10's deformation.

In one embodiment, with continued reference to fig. 6 and 7, fig. 7 isbase:Sub>A schematic cross-sectional view taken alongbase:Sub>A-base:Sub>A line in fig. 6. Bosses 11 are respectively provided on the top surface of the semi-annular portion 12 near both ends of the semi-annular portion 12, and the support member 30 is connected to the top surfaces of the bosses 11. For example, two pin holes 111 and a threaded hole 112 may be formed on the boss, and a pin hole and a threaded hole are correspondingly formed on the bottom surface of the lifting bracket 10, and the support assembly 30 is positioned by the pin hole structure and locked to the top surface of the boss 11 by a screw. In order to further reduce the weight of the lifting bracket 10, the lifting bracket 10 may further be provided with a second lightening hole 113 at the boss 11, and the shape of the second lightening hole 113 is not limited, and may be, for example, a trapezoidal hole.

Experiments prove that after the semi-annular lifting support 10 is used, the first lightening holes 34 are formed in the bracket 32, and the second lightening holes 113 are formed in the boss 11, so that the total deformation of the lifting support 10 relative to a lifting force-bearing point can be reduced to 0.06mm from 0.24 mm.

The embodiment of the application also provides semiconductor processing equipment which comprises a wafer temporary storage chamber, wherein the wafer temporary storage chamber is internally provided with the wafer supporting mechanism in the above embodiments.

The above provides a wafer support mechanism and a semiconductor processing apparatus, and the principles and embodiments of the present application are explained in detail by applying specific examples. In the present application, each embodiment is described with an emphasis on the description, and reference may be made to the description of other embodiments for a part which is not described or illustrated in any embodiment.

All possible combinations of the technical features in the embodiments are not described in the present application for the sake of brevity, but should be considered as the scope of the present application as long as there is no contradiction between the combinations of the technical features.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present application, and not intended to limit the scope of the present application, and all modifications of equivalent structures and equivalent processes, which are made by the contents of the specification and the drawings of the present application, or which are directly or indirectly applied to other related technical fields, are included in the scope of the present application.

Claims

1. The utility model provides a wafer supporting mechanism, is applied to wafer temporary storage chamber, its characterized in that, wafer supporting mechanism includes:

a lifting support;

at least two sets of supporting components, the interval sets up on the lifting support, supporting component include connecting portion, and two with connecting portion connect and the bracket that sets up at vertical direction interval, be equipped with at least one altitude mixture control structure on the bracket for support the wafer and adjust the levelness of wafer.

2. The wafer support mechanism of claim 1, wherein the bracket is provided with a connection hole;

the height adjustment structure includes:

the adjusting nail is in threaded connection with the connecting hole;

and the supporting cap is sleeved at the top end of the adjusting nail.

3. The wafer support mechanism of claim 2, wherein the adjustment pins are further provided with vent holes extending longitudinally therethrough.

4. The wafer support mechanism of claim 1, wherein the support assembly is integrally formed.

5. The wafer support mechanism of claim 1, wherein the bracket comprises a first support part and a second support part which are connected with each other, and the projection of the bracket on the horizontal plane is V-shaped, and the height adjusting structure is arranged on each of the first support part and the second support part.

6. The wafer support mechanism of claim 5, wherein the upper of the two carriers is a first carrier and the lower of the two carriers is a second carrier;

the included angle between the first supporting part and the second supporting part of the first bracket is 60 +/-20 degrees; and/or the presence of a gas in the gas,

7. The wafer support mechanism of claim 6,

the height adjusting structures on the first bracket are arranged on the same circumference; and/or

8. The wafer support mechanism of claim 5, wherein the first support portion and the second support portion are respectively provided with first lightening holes.

9. The wafer support mechanism of any of claims 1-8, wherein the lift bracket includes a semi-annular portion and a connecting plate extending outwardly along the semi-annular portion, the lift mechanism being coupled to the connecting plate;

the connecting plate is in transition connection with the second part through a concave arc.

10. The wafer support mechanism of claim 9, wherein the top surface of the semi-annular portion is provided with bosses near both ends of the semi-annular portion;

the supporting component is connected to the top surface of the boss;

11. A semiconductor processing apparatus comprising a wafer staging chamber, wherein the wafer staging chamber has a wafer support mechanism as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 10 disposed therein.