JP2001135623A - Film former - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To transfer a thick and flat surface film to a large area of substrate easily and at low cost. SOLUTION: First and second plates 2 and 5 are counterposed above and below, and a wafer 3 is mounted downside the first plate 2. A sheet film 6 is arranged between the first and second plates 2 and 5, and its peripheral edge is held by a film holding mechanism 16. The second plate 5 is lifted into contact with the sheet film 6, and it is heated by a heater 8. When it is heated, the sheet film 6 expands by thermal expansion, and a slack occurs thereby, so the periphery of the sheet film 6 is pressed and structured by a pressure ring 35. The film made on the surface of the film is transferred to the wafer 6 by lowering the first plate 2 thereby pressing it against the sheet film 6.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a thin film forming apparatus, and more particularly to a thin film forming apparatus for transferring a thin film to a substrate by pressing a substrate and a sheet film on which the thin film is formed.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A thin film forming method relating to an electronic component mainly includes:
Sputtering, chemical vapor deposition, vapor deposition, coating,
It can be broadly divided into plating methods and the like. When the area of a substrate on which a thin film is to be formed is small, any one of these methods can be used to handle an electronic component to be realized. However, in recent years, semiconductor substrates have
For example, the diameter has been steadily increased from 200 mm to 300 mm. With the increase in the diameter of wafers used in the manufacture of LSIs and the increase in the area of liquid crystal panels, etc., a thin film forming method suitable for a large area is required. Have been. Also, in the field of multilayer wiring technology in LSI manufacturing technology, it is necessary to flatten the surface of an insulating film with high precision in order to realize multilayer wiring. The demand for technology is also increasing.

Heretofore, as typical techniques of this flattening method, (1) SOG (Spin-On-Glass) method and PIQ method (K. Sat method)
o, S.Harada, A.Saiki, T.Kitamura, T.Okubo, and K.Muka
i, "A Nove1 Planar MultilevelInterconnection Techno
logy Utilizing Polyimide ", lEEE Trans.Part HybridPa
ckage., "PHP-9,176 (1973)" (2) Etchback method (P. Elikins, K. Reinhardt, and R.
Layer, "A planarization Process for double metal CM
OS using Spin-on Glass asa Sacrificial Layer, "Proc
eeding of 3rd lnternational IEEE VMIC Conf., 100 (19
86)) (3) Lift-off method (K. Ehara, T. Morimoto, S. Muramoto,
and S.Matsuo, "Planar lnterconnection Technology fo
r LSI Fabrication Utilizing Lift-off Process ", J. Ele
ctrochem.Soc "Vol.131, No.2,419 (1984)) (4) Bias sputtering method (CYTing, VJVivalda and
HGSchaefer, "Study of Planarized Sputter-Deposi
ted-SiO2 ", J. Vac. Sci. Technol. 15, 1105 (1978). (5) Bias ECR method (K. Machida and H. Oikawa," Si
O2 PlanarizationTechnology with Biasing and Electr
on Cyclotron Resonance PlasmaDeposition for Submic
ron Interconnections, "J.Vac.Sci.Technol.B4,818 (198
6)) (6) Polishing method (WJPatrick, WLGuthrie, CLStandle)
y, PMSchiable, "Application of Chemical Mechanical
Polishing to the Fabrication of VLSI Circuit Inter
connections ", J.E1ectrochem.Soc., Vol.138, No.6, Jun
e, 1778 (1991)). Etc. were considered.

However, among the above prior arts, S
In the OG method, it is difficult to realize flattening. The etch-back method has a problem of dust generation and dust management is difficult.
The lift-off method does not completely dissolve the stencil material used at the time of lift-off. The bias sputtering method and the bias ECR method have a low throughput and a large damage to the device. The polishing method has a problem that if the film quality of the insulating film is poor, good polishing characteristics cannot be obtained, and none of them has been put to practical use. Further, in the case where the above-mentioned conventional technology is applied to a semiconductor substrate having a large area, it is difficult to secure the flatness of the surface and the uniformity of the film thickness from the viewpoint of controllability. As a result, a complicated process must be added in order to cope with an increase in the area, and there is a problem that the cost is increased.

In order to solve such a problem, a thin film forming apparatus for forming a thin film on a substrate by a pressure transfer method has been proposed (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-18 / 1998).
9566). As shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, the thin film forming apparatus has a sample table 2 on which a substrate 3 on which a thin film is to be formed is mounted and a heater 4 is provided as a heating means for heating the substrate 3 at a predetermined temperature. The transfer plate 5, which is disposed opposite to the lower part of the sample table 2, is provided with a sheet film 6, and has a heater 8 therein for heating the sheet film 6 at a predetermined temperature, is evacuated by a vacuum pump 9. The transfer plate 5 is disposed in the thin film forming chamber 1, the transfer plate 5 is raised to a predetermined position by a load motor 12 as a load mechanism (FIG. 7B), and the sample table 2 is lowered by the load motor 11 ( (FIG. 7 (c)) By pressing the substrate 3 against the sheet film 6 for a predetermined time (FIG. 7 (d)), the thin film formed on the surface of the sheet film 6 is transferred to the surface of the substrate 3. That. Further, the transfer plate 5 and the support plate 13 are connected by a plurality of compression coil springs 14 so that the load pressure becomes uniform when the sample table 2 is pressed against the transfer plate 5. Further, the heaters 4 and 8 of the sample table 2 and the transfer plate 5 are controlled by the heater control unit 15, and the outer peripheral edge of the sheet film 6 is held by the film holding mechanism 16.

[0006] The film holding mechanism 16 is shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 1, the sheet film 6 includes a pair of holding members 17a, 17b for holding the front and back surfaces of the outer peripheral edge of the sheet film 6, and actuators 18A, 18B such as air cylinders for moving these holding members 17a, 17b up and down. The film 6 is supplied by an appropriate supply mechanism, and the film
9, the actuators 18A and 18B are operated to hold the sheet film 6 by the holding members 17a and 17b.
Is configured to be held. Nipping body 17a, 17
b are formed in a ring shape, respectively.
A and 18B are provided at equal intervals in the circumferential direction of the sheet film 6, and hold the holding members 17a and 17b, respectively.

[0007]

However, in the conventional thin film forming apparatus described above, the film holding mechanism 1
Since the sheet film 6 is merely held in a tensioned state by the sheet heater 16, when the sheet film 6 is heated by the heater 8, the sheet film 6 expands due to thermal expansion as shown in FIG. When the thin film is transferred in this state, wrinkles occur on the surface of the thin film, and there is a problem that a thin film having a flat surface and a uniform thickness cannot be formed. In addition, all of the conventional apparatuses adopt a method of continuously supplying a sheet film wound in a roll shape, and thus a single-wafer method of supplying a sheet film of a size corresponding to a substrate one by one. There is a demand for the development of a device that employs the above. In that case, the sheet film is formed in a circular shape, and it is essential to develop a mechanism for holding such a circular sheet film in a tensioned state so as not to cause wavy loosening.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and an object of the present invention is to reliably remove the slack of a sheet film caused by thermal expansion and to provide a large-area substrate. An object of the present invention is to provide a thin film forming apparatus capable of transferring a thin film formed on a sheet film with a flat surface and a uniform film thickness.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a thin film forming apparatus according to a first aspect of the present invention is provided so as to be relatively movably opposed to each other, and is provided on a facing surface of one of the plates. A first and a second plate on which a substrate is mounted and a sheet film having a thin film on the opposite surface of the other plate; heating means for heating at least one of the substrate and the sheet film; and the first plate Or second
A weight mechanism for transferring at least one of the plates and pressing the substrate and the sheet film for a predetermined time to transfer the thin film to the substrate, a film holding mechanism for holding the sheet film, and a film holding mechanism. A film tensioning mechanism for pressing and tensioning the held sheet film.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect, the sheet film has a circular shape, the film tensioning mechanism includes a pressing ring for pressing an outer peripheral portion of the sheet film, and a plurality of pressing rings for pressing the pressing ring against the sheet film. It is composed of an actuator.

In the present invention, when the sheet film is heated by the heating means, the sheet film is stretched to cause a wavy slack. It is. The pressing ring of the film tensioning mechanism presses the outer peripheral portion of the sheet film uniformly over the entire circumference.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic sectional view showing the configuration of a thin film forming apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
FIGS. 3A to 3D are views showing the operation of the apparatus, FIG. 3 is a sectional view of a wafer, FIG. 4 is a sectional view of a sheet film, and FIG.
(C) is a view showing a step of transferring the insulating film to the semiconductor substrate. In the figure, the same reference numerals are given to the same components as those shown in the section of the prior art.

In FIG. 1 and FIG.
Numeral 0 is provided with a chamber 21 forming a thin film forming chamber 1 in which the inside can be evacuated, and the first and second plates 2 and 5 are accommodated in this chamber 21 so as to face up and down.
The thin film forming chamber 1 is evacuated to an exhaust port 22 by a vacuum pump 9.
Can be evacuated.

The first plate 2 has a wafer (substrate) on a lower surface facing the second plate 5 on which a thin film is to be formed.
The sample stage 3 is formed by mounting the sample stage 3. For this reason, the lower surface of the first plate 2 is provided with a quartz plate 2A polished to ensure flatness, and the wafer 3 is mounted on the quartz plate 2A. Quartz wafer 3
It does not contain substances that contaminate it, and has good processability,
Since the required flatness can be easily obtained, it is excellent as a material for mounting the wafer 3. Further, the first plate 2 includes a heater 4 as a heating means inside. The heater 4 is controlled by the heater control unit 15 and is controlled to be heated between 25 ° C. and 300 ° C. The first plate 2 is suspended in the chamber 21 and is configured to be moved up and down by the load motor 11.

The second plate 5 is arranged below the first plate 2 so as to have the same axis, and a transfer film is formed by mounting a sheet film 6 on the upper surface. The second plate 5 includes a quartz stage 5a on which the sheet film 6 is placed, and a heating table 5b for heating the sheet film 6. The heating table 5b has a heater 8 as a heating means inside. The heater 8 is controlled by the heater control unit 15 and is controlled to be heated between 25 ° C. and 300 ° C.

The second plate 5 is elastically supported on the support plate 13 by a plurality of compression coil springs 14, so that when the substrate 3 and the sheet film 6 are pressed, the applied pressure is uniform. I am trying to become. The support plate 13 is held by a column 23 so as to be vertically movable, and is configured to be moved up and down by a load motor 12.

In FIG. 3, the wafer 3 has a structure in which a semiconductor substrate 26 formed in a disk shape and an Al wiring as an electrode wiring 27 are formed on the semiconductor substrate 26. In the present embodiment, the electrode wiring 27 is formed by forming Al to a thickness of 5000 angstroms by a sputtering method, and then performing patterning by a photolithography process.
Processing was performed by dry etching.

In FIG. 4, the sheet film 6 is formed in a circular shape larger than the wafer 3, and an insulating film 30 to be a thin film is formed on the surface. In the present embodiment, a thermoplastic resin film is used as the sheet film 6. As a thin film, a coating liquid of an SOG material for forming an insulating film was used, and this was applied onto the sheet film 6 to form an insulating film 30 having a thickness of 1 μm or more.

The thin film forming apparatus 20 includes a film holding mechanism 16 for holding the sheet film 6 when the insulating film 30 is transferred, and a film tensioning mechanism 31 for tensioning the sheet film 6. As shown in FIG. 2A, the film holding mechanism 16 vertically moves the pair of holding members 17a and 17b for holding the front and back surfaces of the outer peripheral portion of the sheet film 6 and these holding members 17a and 17b. Actuators 18A and 18B such as air cylinders are provided, and are installed on a frame 32 fixed in the chamber 21. The pair of holding bodies 17a and 17b are formed in a ring shape. The actuators 18A and 18B are each composed of a plurality of (for example, four) actuators, which are equally arranged in the circumferential direction on the outer peripheral portion of the sheet film 6, and the holding members 17a and 17b are attached to the distal end of the movable rod. Have been.
Such a film holding mechanism 16 is the same as the conventional film holding mechanism shown in FIG.

The film tensioning mechanism 31 is for applying a desired tension to the sheet film 6 held by the film holding mechanism 16 and thermally expanded by heating, and tensions the sheet film 6. The actuator is attached to the frame 32 downward. An air cylinder 34 serving as a member, and being lowered by the operation of the actuator 34, the outer peripheral portion of the sheet film 6, more precisely, the pair of holding members 17
a, a circular press ring 3 for pressing an inner part from 17b
5 is comprised. A plurality of the air cylinders 34 are arranged at equal intervals in the circumferential direction on the outer peripheral portion of the sheet film 6, and the holding ring 35 is attached to the tip of the movable rod. Note that all the air cylinders 34 are configured to operate in synchronization with each other by a drive signal from the control unit.

Next, a procedure for forming a thin film using the above-described thin film forming apparatus 20 will be described. In this embodiment, the wafer 3 shown in FIG.
Are mounted with the electrode wiring 27 facing downward. Further, the sheet film 6 shown in FIG. 4 is supplied above the stage 5 a of the second plate 5 with the insulating film 30 facing upward, and the outer peripheral edge is held by the film holding mechanism 16. FIG. 2A shows this state. In this state, the film tensioning mechanism 31 has not been operated yet, and the holding ring 35 is waiting above the sheet film 6.

In this state, the insulating film 30 is
The operation of the thin film forming apparatus 20 at the time of the transfer to the device is as follows. (1) First, the inside of the thin film forming chamber 1 is evacuated by the vacuum pump 10 to a desired degree of vacuum. (2) After a desired degree of vacuum is reached, the heater 4 is energized by a control signal from the heater control unit 15 to heat the first plate 2 to about 200 ° C. and heat the wafer 3 to a desired temperature. I do. Similarly, the heater 8 is energized to heat the second plate 5 to about 200 ° C., and a signal is sent from the control unit to the load motor 12 to start the load operation. As a result, the second plate 5 becomes the sheet film 6
And the stage 5a is brought into contact with the sheet film 6 (FIG. 2B). Therefore, the sheet film 6 is heated and stretched to generate a wavy slack. (3) Next, the actuator 3 of the film tensioning mechanism 31
4 to lower the presser ring 35 and lower the first plate 2 by driving the weight motor 11 to press the wafer 3 against the sheet film 6 (FIG. 2).
(C), (d), FIG. 5 (a)). The holding ring 35 is lowered to push down the outer peripheral portion of the sheet film 6 to tension the sheet film 6. Therefore, wavy slack due to thermal expansion is removed. The timing at which the wafer 3 is pressed against the sheet film 6 is set after the sheet film 6 is pressed down by the press ring 35 and becomes taut. (4) The wafer 3 and the sheet film 6 are pressed under a predetermined load for a certain period of time. During that time, the wafer 3 and the sheet film 6 are heated to a predetermined temperature. In the implementation of the present invention, the degree of vacuum in the thin film forming chamber 1 is 10 To
rr or less, the thin film transfer weight 5Kg, heating temperature 2
The heating was performed at 00 ° C. for 10 minutes. (5) When a series of weighting operations is completed, a signal is sent from the control unit to the weighting motors 11 and 12 so that the weighting state becomes zero, and the first and second plates 2 and 5 return to the original initial positions. Let it. At this time, control is performed so that the evacuation is also stopped. (6) After that, the sheet film 6 with the insulating film 30 interposed therebetween
The wafer 3 integrated with the insulating film 30 is taken out from the thin film forming chamber 1 and the sheet film 6 is peeled off as shown in FIG.
Is obtained. (1) After the sheet film 6 is peeled off, a heat treatment step is further performed to fire the insulating film 30. In this embodiment, the heat treatment was performed at a temperature of 400 ° C. for a time of 30 minutes.

As described above, the thin film forming apparatus 20 according to the present invention
In this case, a film tensioning mechanism 31 is provided in addition to the film holding mechanism 16 so that the sheet film 6 that has been heated and stretched is pressed in the radial direction so as to be tensioned by applying a certain tension. With this configuration, the sheet film 6 does not have wavy slack, and the large area wafer 3
Even in this case, a thin film having a flat surface and a uniform thickness can be transferred to the wafer 3.

If the sheet film 6 is pretensioned by the film tensioning mechanism 31, the sheet film 6 does not move when the wafer 3 and the sheet film 6 are pressed. Further, since the sheet film 6 is tensioned by the film tensioning mechanism 31, the amount of elastic deformation in the thickness direction can be reduced.

In the above embodiment, an example is shown in which the wafer 3 is mounted on the first plate 2 to be used as a sample stage, and the sheet film 6 is mounted on the second plate 5 to be used as a transfer plate. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the first plate 2
May be used as a transfer plate, and the second plate 5 may be used as a sample stage. In the above-described embodiment,
The sheet film 6 is formed into a disk shape, and is supplied one by one between the first and second plates 2 and 5, and is applied to a thin film forming apparatus in which the sheet film 6 is pressed by a pressing ring. The present invention can be applied to a thin film forming apparatus using a sheet-like film as it is. In the above-described embodiment, the first plate 2 and the second plate 5 are moved up and down by the load motors 11 and 12, but it is also possible to adopt a configuration in which only one of them is moved up and down. Further, in the above-described embodiment, the weight is applied by using the motors 11 and 12 as the weighting mechanism. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and any other mechanism that presses the first and second plates 2 and 5 may be used. Means may be used. Also,
In the above-described embodiment, the sheet film 6 made of the thermoplastic synthetic resin film is used. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and it goes without saying that a metal film or the like may be used.

Although the insulating film is formed on the sheet film 6, the insulating film is not limited to the insulating film as long as it can be formed on the sheet film. You may. Furthermore, in the above-described embodiment, an example in which a thin film is formed on a semiconductor substrate has been described.
The present invention is not limited to this, and it is needless to say that the present invention can be applied to a substrate for mounting such as a multi-chip module or a substrate for liquid crystal as long as it is related to electronic component materials.

[0027]

As described above, according to the thin film forming apparatus of the present invention, since the sheet film is configured to be tensioned by the film tensioning mechanism, the wavy slack generated by the thermal expansion can be removed. Therefore, even if the substrate has a large area, a thin film having high flatness without wrinkles on its surface can be easily formed at low cost.

Further, since the sheet film is pressed by the pressing ring, a uniform tension can be applied to the entire surface of the film.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic sectional view showing a configuration of a thin film forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 2A to 2D are diagrams showing the operation of the device.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view of a wafer.

FIG. 4 is a sectional view of a sheet film on which an insulating film is formed.

FIGS. 5A to 5C are views showing a step of transferring an insulating film to a semiconductor substrate.

FIG. 6 is a schematic sectional view showing a configuration of a conventional thin film forming apparatus.

FIGS. 7A to 7D are diagrams showing the operation of the device.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Thin film formation chamber, 2 ... 1st plate, 3 ... Wafer, 4
... heater, 5 ... second plate, 6 ... sheet film, 8 ... heater, 11, 12 ... weighted motor, 16 ...
Film holding mechanism, 20: thin film forming apparatus, 31: film tensioning mechanism, 34: actuator, 35: holding ring.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Kuragi Billion 2-3-1 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (72) Inventor Iseki Iori Horikawa-tsuji, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto-shi, Kyoto Nouchi climb 4 chome 1 Tenten Kitacho 1 Dai Nippon Screen Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Tsutomu Ueyama Kyoto Prefecture Kyoto City Hyokawa-dori Teranouchi 4 chome Metenjin Kita 1 1 Dainippon Screen F term in the manufacturing company (reference) 4M104 BB02 DD31 5F033 HH08 RR09 SS00 SS21 XX00 5F045 AB32 AD08 BB01 BB08 5F058 BA06 BA09 BC05 BF47 BF80 BG01 BG03 BG04 BH01 BJ01 BJ02

Claims (2)

[Claims] A first substrate mounted on a facing surface of one of the plates and a sheet film having a thin film mounted on a facing surface of the other plate; A second plate; heating means for heating at least one of the substrate and the sheet film; and moving at least one of the first plate and the second plate to move the substrate and the sheet film for a predetermined time. A weighting mechanism that presses and transfers the thin film to the substrate; a film holding mechanism that holds the sheet film; and a film tensioning mechanism that presses and tensions the sheet film held by the film holding mechanism. Thin film forming equipment. 2. The thin film forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sheet film has a circular shape, and the film tensioning mechanism includes a pressing ring for pressing an outer peripheral portion of the sheet film, and a plurality of pressing rings for pressing the pressing ring against the sheet film. An apparatus for forming a thin film, comprising: an actuator.