JP2002289668A - Substrate treating apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To perform continuous treatment in a substrate treating apparatus normally by preventing inflow of residual gases in a treatment chamber into the other chambers. SOLUTION: In this substrate treating apparatus, at least two treatment chambers 4, 5 are connected to a common conveying chamber 3. Gate valves 9, 10 are arranged between the treatment chambers 4, 5 and the conveying chamber 3. When the substrate 20 is conveyed between the treatment chambers 4, 5 and the conveying chamber 3 by opening and closing the gate valves 9, 10, air pressure in each chamber 3 to 5 is set as follows. PAn >PB1 PB2 >PAm Where, PAn , PAm is the pressure in treatment chambers (n, m>=1, n≠m). PB1 , PB2 is the pressure in the conveying chamber.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus, and more particularly to a substrate processing apparatus in which a plurality of processing chambers are connected to a common transfer chamber.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There is a so-called multi-chamber apparatus in which a plurality of processes for a substrate are continuously processed in a closed space without ever being brought out of the device due to the miniaturization of a pattern. This type of substrate processing apparatus has several processing chambers in one apparatus centering on a common transfer chamber.
A gate valve is provided between the processing chamber and the transfer chamber. By opening and closing the gate valve, the processing chamber and the transfer chamber can communicate with each other or be shut off. Conventionally, when the gate valve is opened, the pressure is balanced and there is no gas outflow between the processing chamber and the transfer chamber, or the pressure in the processing chamber is set higher than that of the transfer chamber, Gas is allowed to flow out of the transfer chamber.

[0003]

However, in such a conventional substrate processing apparatus, the residual gas from one processing chamber flows out to the transfer chamber. In some cases, residual gas in one reaction chamber flowing out to the transfer chamber flows back to another reaction chamber. This backflow is not a problem if the residual gas in one reaction chamber does not affect the processing in the other reaction chamber. However, when processing in another reaction chamber is adversely affected, an abnormality occurs in continuous processing, which is a problem.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art by adjusting the pressure setting between the chambers.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a substrate processing apparatus which enables continuous processing to be performed normally.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides at least two
In a substrate processing apparatus in which one processing chamber A is connected to a common transfer chamber B, when transferring a substrate between the processing chamber A and the transfer chamber B, the pressure of each chamber is set as follows. It is characterized by having been set. PAn> PB1 PB2> Pam where PAn and PAm are the processing chamber pressures (n, m ≧ 1, n ≠).
m) PB1 and PB2 are pressures in the transfer chamber

According to the present invention, the pressure at the time of substrate transfer is set to the pressure P of one of the at least two processing chambers.
An is set higher than the pressure PB1 of the transfer chamber B, and the other processing chamber Am
Is set to be lower than the pressure PB2 of the transfer chamber B, so that the residual gas in the processing chamber Am is reduced to the other processing chamber An.
To prevent the substrate processing from being adversely affected.

[0007] In the above invention, it is preferable that the relationship of the pressure during the transfer of the substrate is set as PAn>PB> PAm. When the pressure PB of the transfer chamber B with respect to the processing chamber A is set to be constant as described above, the transfer throughput can be improved because the pressure of the transfer chamber B does not need to be changed every time transfer is performed.

In the above invention, when the processing in the processing chamber An is HSG film processing and the processing chamber Am is P (phosphorus) doping processing, P in the P doping processing in the processing chamber Am is It is particularly effective to set the pressure relationship as described above, since the HSG process is adversely affected.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be described below using a multi-chamber type single wafer CVD apparatus. Here, the substrate is described as a semiconductor silicon wafer, but may be a glass substrate for LCD or the like.

FIG. 1 is an explanatory plan view of a CVD apparatus, and FIG. 2 is an explanatory longitudinal sectional view. A first load lock chamber 2, a first processing chamber 4, a second processing chamber 5, and a second load lock chamber 6 are radially connected around a common transfer chamber 3. The transfer chamber 3, the first load lock chamber 2, the first processing chamber 4, the second processing chamber 5,
Between the second load lock chamber 6, a gate valve 8,
9, 10, and 11 are provided. The first load lock chamber 2 and the second load lock chamber 6 are provided with a gate valve 13 and a gate valve 14 for loading / unloading the wafer cassette 12 from outside. In addition, each said room 2-6
Has an airtight structure.

A cassette elevator 15 is provided in the first load lock chamber 2, and a wafer cassette 12 is mounted on an elevator 16 of the cassette elevator 15. The transfer chamber 3 has a wafer transfer robot 17.
Is provided. The wafer transfer robot 17 includes, for example, two sets of independently driven transfer arms 18 and 19. The first processing chamber 4 and the second processing chamber 5 are each 2
Processing stage (not shown) on which one wafer W can be placed
And two wafers W can be processed at once.

(A) The wafer cassette 12 is carried into the first load lock chamber 2 via the gate valve 13 and is placed on the lift 16.

(B) The transfer arm 18 or 19 of the wafer transfer robot 17 is inserted into the first load lock chamber 2 via the gate valve 8. After holding the wafer W from the wafer cassette 12 and carrying it out to the transfer chamber 3, the wafer W is carried into the first processing chamber 4 via the gate valve 9. When the processing of the wafer W is completed, the transfer arm 18 or 19 is inserted into the first processing chamber 4 via the gate valve 9 by the wafer transfer robot 17. After holding the processed wafer W and carrying it out to the transfer chamber 3, it carries it into the second processing chamber 5 via the gate valve 10. When the processing of the wafer W is completed, the transfer arm 18 or 19 is inserted into the second processing chamber 5 via the gate valve 10 by the wafer transfer robot 17. After holding the processed wafer W and carrying it out to the transfer chamber 3, it carries it into the second load lock chamber 6 via the gate valve 11.

In order to repeat the continuous processing of the wafer W in the first processing chamber 4 and the second processing chamber 5, the above-mentioned operation (b) is repeated.

In a processing chamber capable of processing two wafers at a time, such as the first processing chamber 4 and the second processing chamber 5, the wafer transfer robot 17 has two transfer arms 18 and 19.
After holding the wafer W at a time and performing a predetermined process, the wafer W is loaded into the wafer cassette 12 in the second load lock chamber 6 by the wafer transfer robot 17.

Here, the transfer chamber 3, the first processing chamber 4, and the second
The gas supply / discharge systems 31 to 33 of the processing chamber 5 will be further described. The configurations of the gas supply / discharge systems 31 to 33 of the respective chambers 3 to 5 are common. The gas supply / discharge systems 31 to 33 include a supply system 20 and an exhaust system 2.
And 1. In the passage leading to the exhaust system 21, each room 3
A pressure sensor 22 for detecting the pressure within the range from 5 to 5 is provided.
The exhaust system 21 is connected to a vacuum pump (not shown).
The supply system 20 is provided with a flow control valve (not shown). The pressure control means 25 is sent from a gas supply source (not shown) so that each of the chambers 3 to 5 has a set pressure according to the pressure of each of the chambers 3 to 5 detected by each of the pressure sensors 22. Control signals a1, a2, and b for controlling the incoming gas flow rate are given to the respective flow control valves.

Next, the operation of the above-described configuration according to the first embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. Note that FIG. 3 is common to FIG. 1 and thus details are omitted.
In this process, the HSG is placed on the wafer W in the first processing chamber 4.
(Hemi Spherical Grained) A case in which continuous processing of P doping processing is repeated in the second processing chamber 2 after forming a film will be described.

The description starts with the HSG film generation processing in the first processing chamber 4. The HSG film generation process is set to 0.
The processing is performed by supplying a silane gas under a processing pressure of 1 Pa or less. Doped polysilicon (d-poly) is used as a base on which the HSG film is formed. When the HSG film generation processing in the first processing chamber 4 is completed, the pressure control means 25 controls the transfer chamber 3 so that (pressure PA1 in the first processing chamber 4)> (pressure PB1 in the transfer chamber 3). Of the gas supply / discharge system 31 is controlled. Here, the pressure P in the first processing chamber 4
When A1 is maintained under the HSG film formation condition, the pressure PB1 of the transfer chamber 3 is set to be smaller than the processing pressure of 0.1 Pa or less.

When the setting conditions of the above formula (1) relating to the pressure are satisfied, the gate valve 9 of the first processing chamber 4 is opened, and the HSG film-formed wafer is taken out of the first processing chamber 4 to the transfer chamber 3 by the wafer transfer robot. . At this time, since the pressure in the first processing chamber 4 is higher than the pressure in the transfer chamber 3, the gas flow flows out of the first processing chamber 4 to the transfer chamber 3 as shown by an arrow in FIG. I do. The effluent gas is supplied to the first processing chamber 4
Silane, which is a residual gas of

Subsequently, a P doping process is performed. P doping is performed at a processing pressure of 4000 to 16000 Pa.
Therefore, the pressure control means 25 controls the supply / discharge systems 31 and 33 of the transfer chamber 3 so that (pressure PB2 of the transfer chamber 3)> (pressure PA2 of the second processing chamber 5). Here, when the pressure PA2 in the second processing chamber 5 is maintained at the P doping condition, the transfer chamber 3
Is set to be 4000 to 16000 Pa or more. After this setting, the gate valve 10 of the second processing chamber 5
Is released, and the wafer on which the HSG film has been formed is transferred from the transfer chamber 3 to the second processing chamber 5. At this time, since the pressure in the transfer chamber 3 is higher than the pressure in the second processing chamber 5, the gas flow is as shown in FIG.
(B), as shown by the arrow, from the transfer chamber 3 to the second processing chamber 5.
Flows into.

The gas flowing into the second processing chamber 5 contains silane gas, which is a residual gas in the first processing chamber 4, but there is no problem since silane does not adversely affect the P doping process. Further, the residual gas of the P doping process, which is the residual gas in the second processing chamber 5, has a gas inflow direction opposite to that of the transfer chamber 3
Does not leak to

Therefore, even if the continuous processing in the first processing chamber 4 and the second processing chamber 5 is repeated, the pressure of the processing chambers 4 and 5 and the transfer chamber 3 causes the transfer from the second processing chamber 5 to the transfer chamber. P (phosphorus) flows out to 3 and P can be suppressed from flowing into the first processing chamber 4. Note that even if P flows out of the second processing chamber 5 to the transfer chamber 3 against the flow of the gas flow from the transfer chamber 3 to the second processing chamber 5, the P The flow of P into the first processing chamber 4 can be suppressed because of the pressure during the transfer.

In the above-described first embodiment, when the wafer is conveyed to the first processing chamber 4 or the second processing chamber 5, the above-described pressure condition is set according to the pressure of the first processing chamber 4 or the second processing chamber 5 at that time. Only the pressure in the transfer chamber 3 is changed so that (1) and (2) are completed. However, not only the pressure in the transfer chamber 3 but also the pressure in the first processing chamber 4 or the second processing chamber 5 may be changed.

In the first embodiment, the pressure of the transfer chamber 3 needs to be changed each time the transfer is performed to the first processing chamber 4 and the second processing chamber 5, so that the transfer throughput may be reduced. Therefore, this is improved in the second embodiment described below. In the second embodiment, the relationship between the pressures of the respective chambers during wafer transfer is expressed by: (pressure PAn of first processing chamber 4)> (pressure PB of transfer chamber 3)> (pressure PAm of second processing chamber 5) (3) is set. That is, the pressure PB of the transfer chamber B is kept constant without changing, and the processing pressure of the first processing chamber 4 or the second processing chamber 5 is changed so as to satisfy the equation (3). When the pressure of the transfer chamber 3 with respect to the processing chambers 4 and 5 is set to be constant in this manner, the pressure of the transfer chamber 3 does not need to be changed each time, and the transfer throughput between the transfer chamber 3 and each of the processing chambers 4 and 5 is reduced. improves.

[0025]

According to the present invention, it is possible to prevent the residual gas in one processing chamber from flowing into another processing chamber and adversely affecting the processing in another processing chamber. Continuous processing can be performed normally.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a substrate processing apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view of the substrate processing apparatus according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a gas flow of the substrate processing apparatus according to the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 transfer chamber 4 first processing chamber 5 second processing chamber 25 pressure control means 31 to 33 gas supply / discharge system 22 pressure sensor W wafer (substrate)

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on front page F term (reference) 4K029 AA06 AA24 BD01 EA03 KA01 KA09 4K030 CA04 CA12 GA12 JA09 KA28 5F031 CA02 CA05 FA01 FA09 FA12 GA03 GA50 HA42 JA10 JA47 MA04 MA06 MA11 MA28 NA07 NA17 PA02 5F045 AB11 AF0317 BB14 DP02 EN05 GB06

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a substrate processing apparatus in which at least two processing chambers A are connected to a common transfer chamber B, when transferring a substrate between the processing chamber A and the transfer chamber B, each of the chambers is provided. A substrate processing apparatus characterized in that the pressure is set as follows. PAn> PB1 PB2> Pam where PAn and PAm are the processing chamber pressures (n, m ≧ 1, n ≠).
m) PB1 and PB2 are pressures in the transfer chamber