JP2002299404A - Substrate processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve the teaching work efficiency and the teaching accuracy in a transporter for a substrate processor. SOLUTION: The mechanical positional relation between a reference position specified in a transport room having a transport robot and a transport destination is obtained in advance, a required action quantity for transporting substrates is obtained from the positional relation, and the relation of the reference position to the transport robot is detected to transport the substrates based on the detection result and the action quantity.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus such as a dry etching apparatus and a plasma CVD apparatus, and more particularly to a substrate processing apparatus having a transfer robot as a substrate transfer means.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art First, an outline of a substrate processing apparatus having a transfer robot as an internal transfer device will be described with reference to FIG.

A first cassette chamber 2 and a second cassette chamber 3 are hermetically provided in front of an airtight transfer chamber 1 having a pentagonal plane shape. The first chamber communicates with the chamber 1 through gate valves 6 and 7.
Cassette doors 4 and 5 are provided on the surfaces of the cassette chamber 2 and the second cassette chamber 3 on the side opposite to the transfer chamber 1.

Air-tight cooling chambers 8 and 9 are provided on two surfaces adjacent to the front surface of the transfer chamber 1 so as to face each other, and the cooling chambers 8 and 9 are provided via the gate valves 11 and 12 respectively. It communicates with room 1. A first reaction chamber 13 and a second reaction chamber 14 are provided on two surfaces facing the front surface of the transfer chamber 1, respectively.
The first reaction chamber 13 and the second reaction chamber 14 communicate with the transfer chamber 1 via gate valves 15 and 16.

A transfer robot 17 having a three-joint arm 18 is provided in the transfer chamber 1.
Is rotatable about a vertical axis and is expandable and contractible in the radial direction.

[0006] A cassette (not shown) is carried into the first cassette chamber 2 and the second cassette chamber 3 from the external transfer device (not shown) through the cassette doors 4 and 5. The cassette is loaded with a predetermined number (usually 25) of product wafers (not shown).

The transfer robot 17 is provided with the three-node arm 1.
The wafers for product are transferred from the cassettes of the first cassette chamber 2 and the second cassette chamber 3 to the first reaction chamber by the cooperation of the rotation and expansion and contraction of 8 and the opening and closing of the gate valves 6 and 7 and the gate valves 15 and 16. 13 and carried into the second reaction chamber 14.

In the first reaction chamber 13 and the second reaction chamber 14, a film is formed on the loaded wafer. When the film forming process is completed, the transfer robot 17 transfers the processed wafer to the cooling chambers 8 and 9 by the three-node arm 18 and circulates a cooling gas through the cooling chambers 8 and 9 to cool the wafer to a predetermined temperature. rear,
The money is paid back to the cassette in the first cassette chamber 2. When the processing for all the product wafers in the cassette is completed, the cassette loaded with the processed wafer is unloaded through the cassette doors 4 and 5, and the cassette loaded with the product wafer is loaded. .

In the above-described substrate processing apparatus, the transfer of the substrate is performed by the transfer robot 17. In order to transfer the substrate to each chamber (destination) with high accuracy, the direction of each chamber and the substrate in each chamber are required. It is necessary to teach the transfer robot 17 information necessary for the transfer such as the mounting position.

In the teaching, for example, an operation amount detection sensor using an encoder or the like provided in a rotating portion such as a motor of a transfer robot is used, and the substrate is placed on the three-node arm 18 and the transfer operation is manually performed. A transfer position of the substrate in a chamber, a transfer chamber, or the like, or a position of the tip of the three-node arm 18 is detected by a position sensor (not shown), and the detection result and the transfer operation measured by the operation amount detection sensor are detected. The amount is input to the control unit of the transfer robot 17.

Thus, for example, the amount of operation when the substrate is transferred from a predetermined position in the cassette chamber to a predetermined position in the reaction chamber is taught.

[0012]

As for the horizontal position, a three-node arm 18 and position sensors are provided vertically above and below the substrate transport path.
Preferably, the position sensor detects a horizontal position. However, for example, in the first reaction chamber 13, since electrodes for generating plasma are provided above and below the first reaction chamber 13, no position sensor is provided. For this reason, when trying to detect the position by the position sensor from the horizontal direction, if there is warpage of the substrate or unevenness of the edge portion, the position sensor cannot detect the position, and the position sensor cannot be used.

Conventionally, in a place where the position sensor cannot be used, the position is visually detected and the position information is manually input to the control unit of the transfer robot 17.

For this reason, the conventional method takes time, is inefficient, and depends on the intuition of human beings. Thus, there is a problem that teaching accuracy is poor.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and aims to improve the efficiency of teaching work and improve teaching accuracy.

[0016]

According to the present invention, a predetermined position in a transfer chamber having a transfer robot is set as a reference position, a mechanical positional relationship between the reference position and the transfer destination is determined in advance, and the substrate is determined from the positional relationship. The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus that obtains an operation amount required for transfer, detects a relationship between the reference position and the transfer robot, and transfers a substrate based on the detection result and the operation amount.

[0017]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

The configuration of the apparatus for implementing the present invention is the same as that shown in FIG. FIG. 2 shows an outline of a transport control system.

The transfer chamber 1 and other chambers, that is, the first reaction chamber 13,
The positional relationship between the second reaction chamber 14 or the cooling chambers 8 and 9 is physically determined and is a fixed value. That is, it is a known numerical value that is obtained by design or by actual measurement and does not change once obtained.

The transfer robot 17 transfers the substrate by expanding and contracting and rotating the three-joint arm 18, and determines the amount of expansion and contraction and the amount of rotation. And so on. In addition, the operation obtained by the operation amount detection sensor 23 has repetitive reproducibility. Therefore,
The amount of expansion and contraction and the amount of rotation can be set to known values by the detection of the movement amount detection sensor 23. Note that the relationship between the movement amount detection sensor 23 and the amount of expansion / contraction of the three-bar arm 18 may be obtained in advance by a motion test of the three-bar arm 18.

In the present invention, the positional relationship between the transfer chamber 1 and other chambers and the amount of movement of the transfer robot 17 are used as known values, so that the reaction chamber 13 can be located in a place other than the reaction chambers 13 and 14. , 14 and the like.

In the following embodiment, the teaching of the transfer operation to the first reaction chamber 13 is performed in the transfer chamber 1. An area sensor (image sensor) 21 and an area sensor (image) for acquiring an image of a corner of the substrate 20 conveyed in the transfer chamber 1 as shown in FIG. 3 so that a teaching operation can be performed in the transfer chamber 1. Sensor) 22 is provided.

First, as preparation for performing a teaching operation, data on the positional relationship between the transfer chamber 1 and the first reaction chamber 13, the second reaction chamber 14, and other chambers is obtained by actual measurement or from the design.

Further, the transfer robot 17 in the transfer chamber 1 is moved to the vicinity of a predetermined reference position, and its position data (the relationship between the transfer robot and the predetermined reference position) is obtained.

For example, the position of the transfer robot 17 as shown in FIG. 1 is set as a reference position, and its rotatable posture is set as a reference posture. From this posture and position, the cooling chamber 8, the cooling chamber 9, the first reaction chamber 13. The amount of movement of the three-node arm 18 up to the substrate mounting position in the second reaction chamber 14, that is, the amount of rotation and the amount of expansion and contraction are determined.

From the transfer chamber 1 to the first cassette chamber 2,
Cassette chamber 3, cooling chamber 8, cooling chamber 9, first reaction chamber 1
Third, the operation amount of the three-node arm 18 required for transferring the substrate 20 to each of the second reaction chambers 14 can be grasped from an actually measured value or a design value. Each transport operation amount required for these transport operations is set and input to the transport controller 25 from the input unit 26.

The teaching method will be described with reference to FIGS. 2, 3 and 4.

The substrate 20 is placed on the three-joint arm 18 of the transfer robot 17, and is further moved as a reference posture near the reference position, so that the image sensor 21 and the image sensor 22 are moved.
Thus, an image of the corner of the substrate 20, that is, position data is acquired. The image of the corner of the substrate 20 acquired by the image sensor 21 and the image sensor 22 is preferably a diagonally located corner when the substrate 20 is rectangular. Further, the image sensor 21 and the image sensor 22 may be provided at a place where the substrate 20 can be easily detected. Further, since an image of a corner of the substrate 20 is obtained at a predetermined position, the position adjustment of the image sensor and the like is performed. Alternatively, the work of acquiring an image of a corner is facilitated and the accuracy is improved.

The image signals from the image sensor 21 and the image sensor 22 are input to a transfer controller 25 for controlling the transfer operation of the transfer robot 17 of the substrate processing apparatus. The transfer controller 25 calculates the positional relationship between the transfer robot 17 and the substrate 20 in the reference posture of the transfer robot 17. Further, the positional relationship between the calculated position of the substrate 20 and the reference position is calculated.

With the above operations, the current position of the three-joint arm 18 is recognized by the transfer control unit 25, and the amount of expansion and contraction for each room is input to the transfer control unit 25 from that position, and the teaching operation is completed. .

As described above, the transfer operation of the substrate 20 is performed by the expansion and contraction and rotation of the three-node arm 18. Therefore, teaching of the rotational position at which the three-joint arm 18 performs the transport operation is further performed.

The teaching of the rotational position is performed by the three-joint arm 1
8 with the substrate 20 placed thereon, the three-node arm 18 is actually rotated. For example, with respect to the cooling chamber 8, the direction of expansion and contraction of the three-node arm 18 is matched with the direction of the substrate mounting position of the cooling chamber 8, and the direction of the three-node arm 18 at this time is set via the input unit 26. It is input to the transport control unit 25 as a detection amount of the operation amount detection sensor 23. Similarly, the cooling chamber 9, the first cassette chamber 2,
The three-node arm 18 is also rotated with respect to the second cassette chamber 3, the first reaction chamber 13, and the second reaction chamber 14 to input the detection amount of the operation amount detection sensor 23 to the input unit 26. .

The transfer robot 17 moves the substrate 20
In the case of transporting, the teaching about the amount of expansion and contraction of the three-node arm 18 with respect to each chamber and the transport direction (rotational position) is completed.

In the above embodiment, the rotational position is individually taught for each of the chambers.
The rotational positional relationship between the cassette chamber 2, the second cassette chamber 3, the cooling chamber 8, the cooling chamber 9, the first reaction chamber 13, and the second reaction chamber 14 is obtained in advance from design values or from actual measurement, and The value can be a known value in the same manner as. Assuming that the relationship between the rotational positions of the respective chambers is a known value, the positions of the image sensor 21 and the substrate 20 obtained by the image sensor 22 and the first cassette chamber 2, the second cassette chamber 3, the cooling chamber 8, and the cooling chamber Room 9, 1st
By calculating the rotational position relationship with respect to any one of the reaction chamber 13 and the second reaction chamber 14, the rotational positions of the other chambers can be obtained by calculation from the known rotational positions of the respective chambers. The teaching operation of the rotational position for the chamber of (1) can be omitted.

In the above embodiment, the reference position is set for the expansion and contraction of the three-bar arm 18, but the reference position may be set for the rotation. Although the position of the transfer robot 17 is detected by detecting a corner of the substrate, the position may be obtained with respect to a predetermined position of a member constituting the transfer robot 17, for example, the three-node arm 18.

[0036]

As described above, according to the present invention, a predetermined position in a transfer chamber having a transfer robot is set as a reference position, and a mechanical positional relationship between the reference position and the transfer destination is determined in advance. Since the amount of operation required for substrate transfer is determined from the above, the relationship between the reference position and the transfer robot is detected, and the substrate transfer is performed based on the detection result and the amount of operation.
Since the teaching operation does not depend on the intuition of humans and the number of manual operations is reduced, an excellent effect that a highly accurate teaching operation can be performed with high efficiency can be achieved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic explanatory view of a substrate processing apparatus.

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of a transport control system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram for obtaining position information of a corner portion of a substrate in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram schematically illustrating substrate conveyance in the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Transport room 2 1st cassette room 3 2nd cassette room 8 Cooling room 9 Cooling room 13 1st reaction room 14 2nd reaction room 17 Transfer robot 18 3rd arm 21 Image sensor 22 Image sensor 25 Transfer control part 26 Input part

Continuation of the front page F term (reference) 3C007 AS24 BS15 KT02 KT06 LS02 LS05 5F031 GA02 GA45 JA04 JA22 JA32 JA51 MA28 MA32 PA02

Claims (1)

[Claims] A predetermined position in a transfer chamber having a transfer robot is set as a reference position, a mechanical positional relationship between the reference position and a transfer destination is determined in advance, and an operation amount required for substrate transfer is determined from the positional relationship. A substrate processing apparatus configured to detect a relationship between the reference position and the transfer robot and to transfer the substrate based on the detection result and the operation amount.