JP2003031454A - Method and program for scheduling substrate treatment system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enhance throughput by making a plurality of treatment schedules previously and considering of the use schedule of a plurality of equivalent treating sections thereby quickening delivery of lot surely. SOLUTION: When a schedule is made prior to starting treatment for each lot actually, a plurality of schedules using all equivalent treating sections (pure water treating sections 21 and 29, chemical treatment sections 23 and 31) available depending on the recipe are made when a certain lot is fed and a schedule ending first is employed. The plurality of schedules are compared and a schedule where the lot is delivered earliest is employed. Since use schedule of the equivalent treating sections can be taken into account, delivery of lot can be quickened surely and throughput can be enhanced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and program for creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus for performing a predetermined process on a semiconductor wafer or a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display device (hereinafter simply referred to as a substrate), and more particularly, The present invention relates to a scheduling technique in a substrate processing apparatus having a plurality of equivalent processing units capable of performing substantially the same processing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, in a substrate processing apparatus having two pure water cleaning processing units and two chemical processing units, two pure water cleaning processing units are equivalent processing units and two chemical processing units are used. Is treated as an equivalent processing unit. In such a substrate processing apparatus, conventionally, a lot consisting of a plurality of substrates is processed as follows.

That is, if there is a processing unit that is not used and is empty at the time of inputting a lot, that processing unit is selected.
That is, it is not specified in advance which of the two deionized water cleaning processing units should perform deionized water cleaning, nor is it specified in which of the two deionized liquid processing units the deionized liquid processing should be performed.

Therefore, when the lot is actually put in, the free one of the equivalent processing units is automatically selected.

[0005]

However, the conventional example having such a structure has the following problems. That is, in the distribution method that determines the status of the equivalent processing unit only at the time of lot introduction as in the conventional method, the usage status of other equivalent processing units and the usage status after that cannot be taken into consideration. Therefore, the payout of the lot may be delayed as compared with the case where the equivalent processing unit that was empty at the time of input was not selected.

Further, if none of the equivalent processing units are vacant at the time of input, the carrying operation is started after any of the equivalent processing units is vacant, so that the waiting time increases and the throughput decreases. There is.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and lots are paid out by preparing a plurality of schedules in advance before processing and considering the usage schedules of a plurality of equivalent processing units. An object of the present invention is to provide a method of creating a schedule of a substrate processing apparatus and a program thereof which can surely improve the throughput.

[0008]

The present invention has the following constitution in order to achieve such an object. That is, according to the first aspect of the present invention, a processing unit capable of performing substantially the same processing on a substrate is an equivalent processing unit, and a plurality of lots are processed by a substrate processing apparatus including a plurality of the equivalent processing units. At this time, in the method of creating the schedule of the substrate processing apparatus for selecting the equivalent processing unit used by each lot,
When creating a schedule in advance before actually starting processing for each lot, at the time of inputting a certain lot,
A feature is that a plurality of schedules using all available equivalent processing units are created, and the schedule that finishes the earliest among them is adopted.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the method of creating a schedule of the substrate processing apparatus according to the first aspect, the maintenance regularly performed in each of the equivalent processing units is taken into consideration. Is.

According to a third aspect of the invention, in the method of creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus according to the first or second aspect, priorities are set for the plurality of equivalent processing units,
When the end times of a plurality of created schedules are the same, the schedule that uses the equivalent processing unit with the higher priority is adopted.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the method of creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus according to any of the first to third aspects, one of the plurality of equivalent processing units is a pure water cleaning processing unit. It is characterized by being.

According to a fifth aspect of the invention, in the method of creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus according to any one of the first to third aspects, one of the plurality of equivalent processing sections is a chemical solution processing section. It is characterized by.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, the processing unit capable of performing substantially the same processing on the substrate is an equivalent processing unit,
When processing a plurality of lots with a substrate processing apparatus equipped with a plurality of such equivalent processing units, the processing for each lot is actually started in the schedule creation program of the substrate processing apparatus that selects the equivalent processing unit to be used by each lot. When creating a schedule in advance, when creating a lot, create multiple schedules that use available equivalent processing units, and control the computer to adopt the schedule that finishes earliest. It is characterized by doing.

[0014]

The operation of the invention described in claim 1 is as follows. That is, before actually processing a lot, a plurality of schedules are created in advance as follows. First, assuming the time of inputting a certain lot, at this point, a plurality of schedules using all the equivalent processing units that can be used according to the recipe are created. Then, a plurality of schedules are compared with each other, and the schedule with the earliest lot payout is adopted.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the schedule is set in consideration of the maintenance related to the replacement of the processing liquid, which has a limited number of times of use, which is regularly performed in each equivalent processing unit. create.

According to the invention described in claim 3, when a plurality of schedules are compared and the end times are the same, the schedule using the equivalent processing unit having the higher priority is adopted.

According to the fourth aspect of the invention, the pure water cleaning processing unit that performs cleaning processing with pure water is an equivalent processing unit.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, the chemical solution processing section that performs the chemical solution processing with the chemical solution is an equivalent processing section.

According to the invention described in claim 6, the same operation as that of claim 1 is achieved.

[0020]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1 and 2 relate to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 1 is a plan view showing a schematic configuration of a substrate processing apparatus according to the embodiment, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram thereof.

The substrate processing apparatus is, for example, an apparatus for subjecting the substrate W to chemical treatment, pure water cleaning treatment and drying treatment. A plurality of (e.g., 25) substrates W are stored in the cassette 1 in an upright posture. The cassette 1 containing the unprocessed substrate W is placed on the loading unit 3.
The loading unit 3 includes two mounting tables 5 on which the cassette 1 is mounted. A payout unit 7 is provided on the opposite side of the input unit 3 with the central portion of the substrate processing apparatus sandwiched therebetween. This payout section 7
Stores the processed substrate W in the cassette 1 and dispenses the cassette 1 together. The payout unit 7 functioning in this way is provided with two mounting bases 9 for mounting the cassette 1 similarly to the loading unit 3.

At a position along the input section 3 and the payout section 7, a first transport mechanism 11 is arranged so as to be movable between them. The first transport mechanism 11 transports a plurality of substrates W together with the cassette 1 placed on the loading unit 3 to the second transport mechanism 13.

The second transfer mechanism 13 takes out all the stored substrates W from the cassette 1 and then transfers all the substrates W to the third transfer mechanism 15. After receiving the processed substrate W from the third transfer mechanism 15, the substrate W is accommodated in the cassette 1 and transferred to the first transfer mechanism 11. The third transfer mechanism 15 is configured to be movable in the longitudinal direction of the substrate processing apparatus.

A drying processing section 17 for accommodating a plurality of substrates W in a low-pressure chamber and drying them is provided on the most front side in the moving direction of the third transfer mechanism 15.

A first processing unit 19 is provided at a position adjacent to the drying processing unit 17 in the moving direction of the third transport mechanism 15. The first processing unit 19 is a pure water cleaning processing unit 2 for performing a pure water cleaning process on a plurality of substrates W.
1, and a chemical liquid processing unit 23 for performing chemical liquid processing on a plurality of substrates W. Also,
A first sub-transport mechanism 25 that transports the substrate W between them is provided. The first sub transport mechanism 25 includes the first processing unit 19
In addition to the internal substrate transfer, the pure water cleaning processing unit 21 transfers the substrate W to and from the third transfer mechanism 15.

The second processing unit 27 is adjacent to the first processing unit 19.
Has been deployed. The second processing unit 27 has the same configuration as the first processing unit 19 described above, and a pure water cleaning processing unit 29.
And a second sub-transfer mechanism 33 that transfers the substrate W to and from the third transfer mechanism 15 in the pure water cleaning processing unit 29.

The cassette cleaning unit 35 attached to the second transfer mechanism 13 has a function of cleaning the empty cassette 1 after the second transfer mechanism 13 has taken out all the substrates W.

The pure water cleaning processing section 21 of the first processing section 19 and the pure water cleaning processing section 29 of the second processing section 27 correspond to the processing section and the equivalent processing section in the present invention, and the second processing section
Similarly, the chemical liquid processing unit 23 of the processing unit 27 and the chemical liquid processing unit 31 of the second processing unit correspond to a processing unit and an equivalent processing unit.

The substrate processing apparatus configured as described above is controlled by the control unit 37 as shown in the block diagram of FIG.

The control unit 37 is composed of a CPU and the like, and actually processes which of the above-mentioned configurations is to be used and in which order according to the recipe based on a procedure corresponding to a schedule creating program described below. Predetermine before starting. After that, when actually processing the substrate W, the processing according to the recipe is performed on the substrate W using each configuration based on the created schedule.

The storage unit 39 stores a plurality of types of recipes created in advance by the user of this substrate processing apparatus and defining the procedure for processing the substrate W, a schedule creation program, and the created schedule. Processing programs to be executed and the like are stored in advance. Further, information indicating which one of the above-mentioned two equivalent processing units is preferentially selected is stored in advance, and the created schedule and the like are also stored.

First, a procedure corresponding to the schedule creating program will be described with reference to the time chart shown in FIG. 3, but only a part of the recipe will be described as an example for easy understanding. Also, in this example,
An example of a schedule assuming a case where two lots are processed in parallel with the same recipe will be described.

Explaining the processing in detail, the substrates W in the first lot (shown by white rectangles in FIGS. 3A and 3B) are transferred by the second transfer processing unit 13 in step S10, and then in step S11. After performing the pure water cleaning process in step S12, the chemical solution process is performed in step S12, the pure water cleaning process is performed in step S13, and the drying process is performed by the drying processing unit 17 in step S14, and then the second transfer is performed in step S15. It is to be conveyed by the mechanism 13.

For simplification of description, the operations of the third transport mechanism 15 and the first / second sub-transport mechanisms 25 and 33 are omitted.

In parallel with the processing of the first lot, the second lot (shown by hatched rectangles in FIGS. 3A and 3B)
In order to process the same with the same recipe, as shown by the arrow in FIG. 3, the second lot is added at the time of “input of the second lot”. In the case of the apparatus of this embodiment, since there are two equivalence processing units, there are two schedules in total for the second lot.

That is, as shown in FIG. 3A, the first pure water cleaning processing is performed by the pure water cleaning processing section 21 (step S21).
And the case of processing the second lot as shown in FIG.
As shown in (b), the pure water cleaning processing unit 29 may process the second lot so that the first processing is performed.

In the case of the apparatus of this embodiment, due to its structure, the first sub-transport mechanism 25 and the second sub-transport mechanism 33 can transport the lot only by their own processing units 19 and 27, respectively. Therefore, it is impossible to perform the first water washing on the side of the first processing unit 19 and then the second water washing on the second processing unit 27, and vice versa. Also, if any lot is involved in washing or chemical treatment, the next lot is placed in the same processing unit (first / second processing unit 19, 27) as that lot until it is carried out from the washing process. It cannot be carried in.

First, in the first schedule shown in FIG. 3A, the second lot of substrates W are transported by the second transport processing unit 13 in step S20 in parallel with step S13 of the first lot. After performing the pure water cleaning processing by the pure water cleaning processing unit 21 in step S21,
In step 22, the chemical solution processing unit 23 performs chemical solution processing, in step S23 the pure water cleaning processing section 21 performs pure water cleaning processing again, and then in step S24, the drying processing section 17 performs drying processing. 2 Transport mechanism 1
Transport by 3.

Next, in the second schedule shown in FIG. 3B, the substrates W of the second lot are transported by the second transport processing unit 13 in step S20 in parallel with step S11 of the first lot. After the pure water cleaning processing unit 29 performs the pure water cleaning processing in step S21, the chemical liquid processing unit 31 performs the chemical liquid processing in step S22, and the step S23.
Then, the pure water cleaning processing unit 29 performs the pure water cleaning processing again, the drying processing is performed by the drying processing unit 17 in Step S24, and the second transportation mechanism 13 carries the cleaning processing in Step S25.

Then, the control unit 37 compares these two schedules and adopts the schedule that finishes earlier, that is, the schedule shown in FIG. 3 (a). The schedule thus adopted is stored in the storage unit 39 and is executed when the lot is actually processed.

Next, with reference to FIG. 4, schedule creation in a situation different from the above situation will be described. In this situation, since the maintenance M is regularly performed in the chemical treatment unit 31 due to the chemical exchange, the chemical treatment unit 31 cannot be used during that period.

First, in the first schedule shown in FIG. 4A, the second lot of substrates W are transferred by the second transfer processing section 13 in step S40 in parallel with step S33 of the first lot. After performing the pure water cleaning processing by the pure water cleaning processing unit 21 in step S41,
In step 42, the chemical solution processing unit 23 performs chemical solution processing, in step S43 the pure water cleaning processing section 21 performs pure water cleaning processing again, and then in step S44, the drying processing section 17 performs drying processing, and then in step S45. 2 Transport mechanism 1
Transport by 3.

Next, in the second schedule shown in FIG. 4B, the substrates W of the second lot are transported by the second transport processing unit 13 in step S40 in parallel with step S31 of the first lot. After the pure water cleaning processing unit 29 performs the pure water cleaning processing in step S41, the process waits until the maintenance M of the chemical liquid processing unit 31 is completed. And
After the maintenance M is completed, the chemical solution processing unit 31 performs chemical solution processing in step S42, the pure water cleaning processing unit 29 again performs pure water cleaning processing in step S43, and the drying processing unit 17 performs drying processing in step S44. After the application, the sheet is conveyed by the second conveying mechanism 13 in step S45.

In such a situation, the process shown in FIG. 4A is completed earlier, and this is stored in the storage unit 39 as a schedule.

Next, refer to FIG. In this situation, the recipe is slightly different from the one described above, and the drying processing step S54 for the first lot and the drying processing step S64 for the second lot are set to be long, but the contents of the processing are different from those of the above recipe. Is the same.

In this case, with respect to the processing of the first lot consisting of steps S50-S55, steps S60-S
When all schedules are created for the processing of the second lot consisting of 65, the end times are the same as shown in FIGS. 5 (a) and 5 (b). In such a case, the priority is set as a determination rule in the storage unit 39 in order to prevent the control unit 37 from making a determination and preventing the process from being stalled. For example, the “first processing unit 19 (pure water cleaning processing unit 21
And the chemical treatment unit 23) ”is set”, the schedule of FIG. 5A is selected.

Before actually processing the lot in this way,
A plurality of schedules using all equivalent processing units (pure water cleaning processing units 21, 29, chemical liquid processing units 29, 31) that can be used according to the recipe are created. Then, by comparing multiple schedules and adopting the schedule with the earliest lot payout, and considering the usage schedule of the equivalent processing unit, the lot payout can be surely speeded up and throughput is improved. Can be done.

Further, since the maintenance performed regularly in each equivalent processing unit is taken into consideration, the same effect can be obtained even at the time of maintenance.

Further, by applying the rule adopting the schedule using the equivalent processing unit having the higher priority, it is possible to prevent the schedule creation from being stalled even if the end times are the same in a plurality of schedules.

In the above description, for ease of understanding, only a part of the recipes relating to washing and chemical treatment has been described as an example. The present invention can be applied if a schedule is created in advance before processing and then actual processing is performed. Among them, the following schedule creation method is preferable.

That is, when a plurality of lots are processed by a substrate processing apparatus having a plurality of processing units for processing a substrate, each lot is sequentially processed by each processing unit based on a recipe including a plurality of processing steps. In the method of creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus that determines the processing order of each lot for processing, after arranging the first processing step for any lot, the next processing step of each lot The processing step for the lot having the earliest scheduled end time in the processing step is arranged as the next processing step.

The processing steps in this method include the steps including the above-described processing in the second transport mechanism 13 for the first lot and the rinsing processing in the pure water cleaning processing section 21, the processing in the chemical solution processing section 23, and the pure processing. These are a process including a water washing process in the water washing processing unit 21, a drying process in the drying treatment unit 17, and a carrying process by the second carrying mechanism 13.

According to this method, it is possible to arrange the post-work of the previous processing step and the pre-work of the subsequent processing step in an overlapping manner by pre-scheduling, and to arrange the pre-processing of the process steps that can be arranged. By selecting and arranging the processing step of the lot whose processing step ends early as the next processing step, the time until the completion of the next processing step can be shortened. Therefore, since the processing unit of the substrate processing apparatus can be effectively used, the standby time can be suppressed and the operating rate can be improved.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, but can be modified as follows.

(1) In the above example, the substrate processing apparatus has two equivalent processing units, but the substrate processing apparatus may have three or more equivalent processing units.

(2) The present invention can be applied to any apparatus that performs any processing as long as it is a substrate processing apparatus. For example, an apparatus that deposits a photoresist film on the substrate, an etching apparatus that deposits a conductive film on the surface of the substrate, or the like may be used. The equivalent processing unit in such a case is, for example, a coating processing unit or an etching processing unit.

[0057]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the invention described in claim 1, a plurality of schedules using usable equivalent processing units are created before actually processing a lot. And compare multiple schedules,
Adopting the earliest schedule for lot payout,
By considering the usage schedule of the equivalence processing unit, it is possible to surely speed up the lot payout and improve the throughput.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, since the maintenance regularly performed in each equivalent processing unit is taken into consideration, it is possible to obtain the same effect even at the maintenance time. .

According to the third aspect of the present invention, it is possible to prevent the schedule from being stalled by adopting the schedule using the equivalent processing unit having the higher priority.

According to the fourth aspect of the invention, the schedule can be created in the substrate processing apparatus having the pure water cleaning processing unit as the equivalent processing unit.

According to the fifth aspect of the invention, it is possible to create a schedule in the substrate processing apparatus having the chemical solution processing section as the equivalent processing section.

According to the invention described in claim 6, as a program, the same effect as in claim 1 can be obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a substrate processing apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of schedule creation.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of schedule creation.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of schedule creation.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Cassette 3 ... Input section 5… Mounting table 11 ... First transport mechanism 13 ... Second transport mechanism 15 ... Third transport mechanism 17 ... Drying processing section 19 ... First processing unit 21 ... Pure water cleaning processing section (processing section, equivalent processing section) 23 ... Chemical processing unit (processing unit, equivalent processing unit) 25 ... First sub-transport mechanism 27 ... Second processing unit 29 ... Pure water cleaning processing section (processing section, equivalent processing section) 31 ... Chemical processing unit (processing unit, equivalent processing unit) 33 ... Second sub-transport mechanism 37 ... Control unit 39 ... Storage unit

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Jun Kawai             4-chome Tenjin, which runs up to Teranouchi, Horikawa-dori, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto             1 Kitamachi No. 1 Dai Nippon Screen Manufacturing Co., Ltd.             Inside the company (72) Inventor Kiyoshi Akao             4-chome Tenjin, which runs up to Teranouchi, Horikawa-dori, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto             1 Kitamachi No. 1 Dai Nippon Screen Manufacturing Co., Ltd.             Inside the company (72) Inventor Osamu Horiguchi             4-chome Tenjin, which runs up to Teranouchi, Horikawa-dori, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto             1 Kitamachi No. 1 Dai Nippon Screen Manufacturing Co., Ltd.             Inside the company F term (reference) 3B201 AA01 AB13 AB44 BB92 BB93                       CB11 CC11 CD43                 3C100 AA05 AA16 AA63 BB13 EE06

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A processing unit capable of performing substantially the same processing on a substrate is an equivalent processing unit, and when a plurality of lots are processed by a substrate processing apparatus including a plurality of the equivalent processing units, each lot In the method of creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus that selects the equivalent processing unit to be used, when creating a schedule in advance before actually starting the processing for each lot, select the equivalent processing unit that can be used when a certain lot is input. A method of creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus, characterized in that a plurality of used schedules are created, and a schedule that finishes first among them is adopted. 2. The method of creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein maintenance performed regularly in each of the equivalent processing units is taken into consideration. 3. The method of creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein priorities are set for the plurality of equivalent processing units, and the end times of the created plurality of schedules are the same. In this case, the method for creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus is characterized in that a schedule using an equivalent processing unit having a higher priority is adopted. 4. The method for creating a schedule of a substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein one of the plurality of equivalent processing units is a pure water cleaning processing unit. A method for creating a schedule for a processing device. 5. The method of creating a schedule for a substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein one of the plurality of equivalent processing units is a chemical solution processing unit. How to create a schedule. 6. A processing unit capable of performing substantially the same processing on a substrate is an equivalent processing unit, and when a plurality of lots are processed by a substrate processing apparatus having a plurality of the equivalent processing units, each lot In the schedule creation program of the substrate processing apparatus that selects the equivalent processing unit to be used, when creating a schedule in advance before actually starting the processing for each lot, select the equivalent processing unit that can be used when a certain lot is input. A schedule creation program for a substrate processing apparatus, which creates a plurality of used schedules and controls a computer so as to adopt the schedule that finishes the earliest.