JP2000012480A - Heat treatment system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system for heat treating a substrate under reduced pressure while enhancing uniform heating properties. SOLUTION: The heat treatment system comprises rod-like heating lamps 14, 15 arranged in parallel above and below a heat treatment container for containing a substrate to be treated in parallel. The upper and lower infrared heating lamps are arranged in the intersecting directions and the substrate is irradiated with light from the upper and lower infrared heating lamps and heated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus,
In particular, the present invention relates to a heat treatment apparatus in a single-wafer semiconductor manufacturing apparatus that processes one or a plurality of substrates to be processed.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A semiconductor manufacturing apparatus that performs various heat treatments such as film formation and etching on the surface of a substrate to be processed, such as a wafer, includes a batch type that processes a large number of substrates at a time and a single substrate or a substrate. There is a single-wafer type that heat-treats a plurality of sheets at a time.

[0003] Single wafer type semiconductor manufacturing equipment is inferior in product productivity as compared with batch type semiconductor manufacturing equipment, but is superior in terms of uniformity of the film thickness of the processed substrate, and meets the diversifying customer requirements. There is an advantage that it can cope, and in recent years, the single-wafer type has become the mainstream.

The outline of a heat treatment apparatus in a conventional single-wafer semiconductor manufacturing apparatus will be described below with reference to FIGS.

[0005] In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a flat box-shaped heat treatment vessel made of quartz, and a required number of wafer mounting pins 2 are erected on the bottom surface of the heat treatment vessel 1. The wafer 3 is placed horizontally.

A gate valve 4 is provided on one side surface of the heat treatment container 1, and the wafer 3 can be loaded and unloaded into the heat treatment container 1 via the gate valve 4.

Above the heat treatment vessel 1, a required number (five in the figure) of rod-shaped upper infrared heating lamps 5 are arranged in parallel with the top plate of the heat treatment vessel 1. Above the upper infrared heating lamp 5, there is provided a corrugated upper reflector 6 having a convex curved surface corresponding to the upper infrared heating lamp 5.

Below the heat-treating vessel 1, the same number of rod-like lower-side infrared heating lamps 7 as the upper-side infrared heating lamps 5 are provided in parallel with the bottom plate of the heat-treating vessel 1 in the same direction as the upper-side infrared heating lamp 5. They are arranged in parallel. Below the lower infrared heating lamp 7 is the upper reflector 6
A lower reflector 8 having an inverted shape is provided to correspond to each of the lower infrared heating lamps 7.

The upper infrared heating lamp 5 and the lower infrared heating lamp 7 are both controlled by a controller (not shown) by controlling the supply voltage to the upper infrared heating lamp 5 and the lower infrared heating lamp 7. The irradiation amount of infrared rays is controlled.

One wafer 3 is loaded into the inside of the heat treatment container 1 through the gate valve 4 by a wafer transfer device (not shown) provided outside the heat treatment container 1, and is placed on the wafer mounting pin 2. Placed on The gate valve 4 is hermetically closed, and infrared rays are emitted from the upper infrared heating lamp 5 and the lower infrared heating lamp 7 while a reaction gas is introduced into the heat treatment vessel 1. The infrared rays pass through the top plate or the bottom plate of the heat treatment container 1 and irradiate the wafer 3 in the heat treatment container 1.
The irradiation amount of infrared rays from the upper infrared heating lamp 5 and the lower infrared heating lamp 7 is controlled to a required amount by the control device (not shown), and the inside of the heat treatment vessel 1 is maintained at a predetermined temperature. The reaction gas inside the heat treatment container 1 is ionized, and the ionized reaction gas is deposited on the wafer 3 to perform a film forming process.

When the film forming process is completed, a gas containing a reaction by-product is exhausted, and the inside of the heat treatment vessel 1 is replaced with an inert gas such as a nitrogen gas, and then the gate valve 4 is opened. The wafer 3 is discharged to the outside of the heat treatment container 1 through the gate valve 4 by the wafer transfer machine (not shown).

[0012]

In the above-mentioned conventional heat treatment apparatus, since the infrared heating lamps 5 and 7 as heating sources are rod-shaped and the arrangement direction is the same in the vertical direction, the infrared irradiation on the wafer 3 is performed. The large and small portions appear clearly and alternately according to the arrangement of the lamps, and appear as variations in the temperature distribution on the wafer 3. Such a variation in the distribution cannot be solved only by controlling the amount of infrared irradiation from the upper infrared heating lamp 5 and the lower infrared heating lamp 7, and it is difficult to uniformly irradiate and heat the wafer 3. there were.

In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for a high-density wafer such as a larger diameter wafer and a shallower semiconductor device for forming a shallow semiconductor device. The need for equipment is expanding.

However, when the heat treatment vessel 1 is used in the rapid heat treatment apparatus in order to satisfy the above requirements, the pressure receiving area of the top plate and the bottom plate of the heat treatment vessel 1 increases, and the pressure receiving area is reduced from the outside under normal pressure. There is a possibility that the flat top plate and the bottom plate cannot withstand the external pressure acting on the top plate and the bottom plate of the heat treatment container 1. Further, if the thickness of the top plate and the bottom plate of the heat treatment container 1 is increased so that the top plate and the bottom plate of the heat treatment container 1 are not damaged, the infrared transmission efficiency decreases and the heating efficiency cannot be improved.

Further, without increasing the thickness of the top plate and the bottom plate of the heat treatment container 1 described above,
In the method of setting the inside of the heat treatment vessel 1 to a reduced pressure state, the installation area of the upper side infrared heating lamp 5 and the lower side infrared heating lamp 7 may be set to the same reduced pressure state as in the heat treatment vessel 1. It is difficult to cool the heating lamp 5 and the lower-side infrared heating lamp 7, and there is a problem that the output is limited and the apparatus is complicated.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and aims to improve the uniformity of a wafer and to enable heat treatment of a large-diameter wafer under reduced pressure without reducing thermal efficiency and heating capacity.

[0017]

According to the present invention, there is provided a heat treatment apparatus in which rod-shaped heating lamps are provided in parallel above and below a heat treatment container capable of horizontally storing a substrate to be processed. The present invention relates to a heat treatment apparatus in which a lower side heating lamp and a lower side heating lamp are arranged in a direction intersecting with each other. A heat treatment apparatus in which the upper side heating lamp and the lower side heating lamp are arranged in the generatrix direction of the curved surface of the top plate and the curved surface of the bottom plate, respectively. The substrate to be processed is irradiated and heated by a side infrared heating lamp and a lower infrared heating lamp via a top plate and a bottom plate of the heat treatment container.

[0018]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. It should be noted that in FIGS.
The same reference numerals are given to those equivalent to and the description thereof will be omitted.

Above the flat box-shaped heat treatment vessel 1, a required number (five in the drawing) of rod-shaped upper infrared heating lamps 14 are arranged in parallel on the same plane in parallel with the top plate of the heat treatment vessel 1. Has been established. Below the heat treatment vessel 1, the same number of rod-like lower infrared heating lamps 15 as the upper infrared heating lamps 14 are arranged in parallel on the same plane in parallel with the bottom plate of the heat treatment vessel 1. The side infrared heating lamp 15 is in a direction orthogonal to the upper side infrared heating lamp 14. In FIG. 1, the reflection plate provided for the upper infrared heating lamp 14 and the lower infrared heating lamp 15 is omitted.

Hereinafter, the operation will be described.

When a film forming process is performed on the wafer 3 in the heat treatment container 1, the inside of the heat treatment container 1 is maintained at a normal pressure or a reduced pressure, and the infrared rays emitted from the upper infrared heating lamp 14 are subjected to the heat treatment. The infrared rays transmitted through the top plate of the container 1 and irradiate the upper surface of the wafer 3 and radiated from the lower infrared heating lamp 15 pass through the bottom plate of the heat treatment container 1 and irradiate the lower surface of the wafer 3.
The wafer 3 is heated and a film is formed on the surface.

Since the upper infrared heating lamp 14 and the lower infrared heating lamp 15 are arranged in a direction orthogonal to the plane, the irradiation amount of the upper infrared heating lamp 14 on the upper surface of the wafer 3 and The irradiation amount of the lower infrared heating lamp 15 to the lower surface of the wafer 3 complements each other, so that the variation in the heat distribution of the entire wafer 3 is reduced and the uniformity of the wafer 3 is improved.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

The heat treatment container 16 has a flat hexahedron shape, and has a front wall 17, a rear wall 18, and side walls 19, 19 made of metal.
, A top plate 21 made of quartz and having an arched cross section, and a top plate 21 made of quartz.
Is turned upside down and horizontally rotated by 90 degrees.

The front wall 17 has a symmetrical shape in which the upper side of a flat rectangle is curved in an arch shape. A gate valve 23 is provided on the front wall 17, and a wafer can be loaded and unloaded into the heat treatment container 16 through the gate valve 23.

The rear wall 18 facing the front wall 17 has the same shape as the front wall 17, and the two side walls 19, 19 adjacent to the front wall 17 and the rear wall 18 each have a flat rectangular lower side. It has an arched shape.

An upper surface opening 24 is provided on the upper end surface of the main body portion 20 except for a peripheral portion. A sealing material 25, for example, an O-ring is provided around the upper surface opening 24, and the upper surface opening 24 is provided. Is the sealing material 25 by the top plate 21.
It is airtightly closed via the. Also, on the lower surface of the main body portion 20, similarly to the upper surface, a lower opening 26,
A sealing material (not shown) is provided, and the lower surface opening 26 is provided.
Is hermetically closed by the bottom plate 22 via the sealing material.

Above the top plate 21, a required number (five in the drawing) of bar-shaped upper infrared heating lamps 27 are arranged along the curved surface in parallel with the generatrix of the curved surface of the top plate 21. Below the bottom plate 22, the same number of rod-shaped lower infrared heating lamps 28 as the upper infrared heating lamps 27 are arranged along the curved surface in parallel to the generatrix of the curved surface of the bottom plate 22.
Thus, the upper infrared heating lamp 27 and the lower infrared heating lamp 28 are arranged in a direction orthogonal to each other.

Hereinafter, the operation will be described.

After the wafer is loaded into the inside of the heat treatment vessel 16 through the gate valve 23, the gate valve 23 is hermetically closed. After the inside of the heat treatment container 16 is evacuated by an exhaust device (not shown), the inside of the heat treatment container 16 is exhausted by the exhaust device and maintained at a predetermined negative pressure while introducing a reaction gas.

The top plate 21 and the bottom plate 22 are placed on the heat treatment vessel 16 from the outside under normal pressure toward the inside of the heat treatment vessel 16.
An external pressure due to a pressure difference between the inside and the outside acts, but since the top plate 21 and the bottom plate 22 are curved outward, generation of a bending moment due to the external pressure can be suppressed, and the external plate can sufficiently withstand the external pressure. . Therefore, the top plate 21 and the bottom plate 2
In the case of No. 2, the thickness can be reduced as compared with the case of the flat plate shape.

Infrared rays are emitted from the upper infrared heating lamp 27 and the lower infrared heating lamp 28, and the infrared rays pass through the top plate 21 and the bottom plate 22, respectively, and irradiate and heat the wafer from both upper and lower surfaces. The reaction gas is ionized, and the ionized reaction gas adheres and deposits on the wafer to perform a film forming process.

Since the upper infrared heating lamp 27 and the lower infrared heating lamp 28 are disposed in a direction orthogonal to each other, the irradiation amount of the upper infrared heating lamp 27 to the upper surface of the wafer and the lower infrared heating lamp 28
And the amount of irradiation on the lower surface of the wafer complements each other, so that the distribution of heat distribution of the entire wafer is reduced, and the uniformity of the wafer is improved.

In the first and second embodiments, the upper infrared heating lamps 14 and 27 and the lower infrared heating lamps 15 and 28 are arranged in orthogonal directions. , But need not be orthogonal, but may be arranged in the direction in which they intersect.

The heating source is not limited to the infrared lamp, but may be a halogen lamp or a resistance heating source as long as it is rod-shaped.

Further, the number of heating lamps is not limited to the number described above, and the number of heating lamps installed on the upper side and the lower side does not necessarily have to be the same.

[0037]

As described above, according to the present invention, the variation in heat distribution on the substrate to be processed is reduced, and the heat uniformity of the substrate to be processed is improved. Therefore, the thickness of the substrate to be processed can be made uniform, and the quality of the product can be improved.

Further, since it is possible to perform a heat treatment in which the inside of the heat treatment container is decompressed without increasing the thickness of the top plate and the bottom plate of the heat treatment container, a large diameter substrate can be obtained without lowering the heating efficiency. Various excellent effects are exhibited, such as being able to meet the demands for densification and high-density film layers.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view showing a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing a conventional example.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing the conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 14 Upper infrared heating lamp 15 Lower infrared heating lamp 16 Heat treatment container 21 Top plate 22 Bottom plate 27 Upper infrared heating lamp 28 Lower infrared heating lamp

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a heat treatment apparatus in which bar-shaped heating lamps are provided in parallel above and below a heat treatment vessel capable of horizontally storing a substrate to be processed, the upper heating lamp and the lower heating lamp intersect each other. A heat treatment apparatus, wherein the heat treatment apparatus is arranged in a direction in which the heat treatment is performed.