JP2003328120A - Opening/closing device of vertical sputtering cathode - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an opening/closing device of a vertical sputtering cathode whose maintenance operation is efficiently performed by easily securing a space for maintenance in accordance with increase in the size of a substrate. <P>SOLUTION: The device is composed of a rotary mechanism which consists of a rotary hinge part 32 and a cathode turning cylinder 21 and which rotates the vertical sputtering cathodes 7a-7c around the vertical axis 22c along the side end edge 20 of each cathode, and an opening/closing mechanism which consists of a cathode opening/closing cylinder 31 and which opens/closes the vertical sputtering cathodes 7a-7c around the horizontal axes 8a-8c along the lower end edge of each cathode. Power cylinders are suitably used as the operating means for the rotary mechanism and the opening/closing mechanism of this device. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vertical sputtering cathode switchgear in a substantially upright state. With the trend toward larger and thinner substrates in recent years, the advantages of a vertical sputtering apparatus capable of performing film formation with the substrate substantially upright have been evaluated.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the tendency for liquid crystal displays and solar cells to increase in size has become remarkable, and along with this, 1 m for film formation.
The practical development of large-scale large-sized substrates is underway. Handling such a large substrate by the conventional horizontal method causes various problems. For example, as the substrate becomes larger and thinner, the horizontally placed substrate is likely to be bent or warped due to its own weight, and it is difficult to perform precise film formation in terms of film thickness and flatness. Also, especially during transportation,
According to a general tray transfer as a horizontal transfer method, the number of parts such as a transfer carrier is large, and the entire surface of a large substrate contacts the tray, which causes particles to be generated. Furthermore, it is necessary to secure a considerable occupied space because the structure of the film forming apparatus becomes large corresponding to the substrate area.

Therefore, instead of the horizontal type as described above, a vertical type for forming a film on a substantially upright substrate may be used. However, in the case of the vertical sputtering apparatus, the set of sputtering cathodes (including the target), which is a heavy object, is also configured in the vertical type, which may impair the workability during maintenance. In other words, in order to easily perform maintenance work, the cathode surface is often changed from the vertical state during operation to a substantially horizontal state and the sputtering cathode is set horizontally. For this purpose, a heavy object is supported and controlled. However, a process of opening and closing the cathode surface and a process time required for the process are required. Along with the increase in the size of the substrate, the load and process time required for this opening / closing operation tend to further increase.

As a maintenance measure using this kind of opening / closing mechanism, for example, according to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-312070 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 6-76661, a sputtering evaporation source in a vertical state and a target surface are tilted about an axis. It is known that it is made horizontal. By placing these things in a horizontal state by the opening / closing mechanism, the maintenance work of the sputtering device parts becomes easy.

[0005]

By the way, in the case of performing maintenance by the above-mentioned conventional opening / closing operation mechanism, securing a space for maintenance has become a new problem as the size of the substrate is increased. That is, with the increase in the size of the substrate, the device parts such as the sputtering cathode are also increased in size and weight, and a heavy load carrying device is often used for replacement / maintenance work at the time of maintenance. It is necessary to secure sufficient space for placement.

However, in the conventional device having the opening / closing mechanism as described above, since the operating direction of the opening / closing mechanism to the horizontal state is fixed, the space layout during maintenance cannot be easily changed. The adverse effect of this is that, especially in a large-sized film forming apparatus having a multi-chamber structure in which a large number of processing chambers are circumferentially arranged around a core chamber, it is impossible to linearly move a worker or a carrier during maintenance. Also, even in the process lines arranged in parallel, the movement work performed between the lines becomes concretely inefficient.

In view of the above problems, the present invention provides a vertical sputtering cathode switchgear capable of easily securing a space for maintenance and efficiently performing maintenance work in response to an increase in size of a substrate. The task is to do.

[0008]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a swirling mechanism for swiveling a vertical sputtering cathode around a vertical axis along either one of the left and right end edges of the cathode. And a vertical sputtering cathode opening / closing mechanism for opening and closing the vertical sputtering cathode around a substantially horizontal axis along the lower edge of the cathode, thereby forming a vertical sputtering switching device.

Thus, while maintaining the vertical arrangement state of the cathode, the turning mechanism opens the cathode around the vertical axis along the left or right side edge of the cathode and makes it stand at the maintenance work position. The opening / closing mechanism opens the cathode around the horizontal axis along the lower edge of the cathode to bring it into a horizontal state. That is, before the opening / closing operation is performed while the cathode, which is a heavy object, is supported and controlled by the opening / closing mechanism, the turning mechanism is used to adjust the cathode position, which occupies a large area in the horizontal state, so that the work space can be effectively utilized. It will be easier. Therefore, for example, by performing maintenance work by putting all the vertical cathodes mounted in the process line in the standby state by the above-described turning and opening / closing mechanism, the maintenance space can be efficiently allocated, and the efficiency of the maintenance work is improved. Will be improved.

Further, in this case, a power cylinder is suitable as an actuating means of the above-mentioned turning mechanism and opening / closing mechanism. As a result, the operation of these mechanisms can be reliably performed.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is an overall view of a single-wafer vertical sputtering film forming apparatus equipped with a vertical sputtering cathode opening / closing device of the present invention. This apparatus is divided into an atmosphere side system and a vacuum chamber side system, and the atmosphere side system is composed of a substrate transfer system 3 provided with a substrate cassette 2 accommodating a large number of substrates 1, while a vacuum chamber side system is provided. Is configured such that the charging / discharging chamber 4, the vacuum robot chamber 5, and the multi-sputtering chamber 6 communicate with each other via a sluice valve (not shown). The vertical sputtering cathodes 7a to 7c are mounted in the multi-sputtering chamber 6 in three directions.

Each of the sputtering cathodes 7a to 7c is integrated with a sputtering target (not shown) mounted inside, and these are constructed so as to be openable and closable around a horizontal axis provided at the lower end edge thereof. In the state where the sputtering cathodes 7a to 7c are closed in the multi-sputtering chamber 6 as shown in FIG. 1, the adhesion between the sputtering chamber 6 and the sputtering cathodes 7a to 7c is made strong by utilizing the pressure by the atmospheric pressure. Further, the sputtering cathodes 7a to 7c are provided with a support base 9a provided immediately below the lower end portion thereof.
Supported by ~ 9c, respectively. And the support base 9a
9c are grounded to the floor by rollers 10 so that they can be moved together with the upper sputtering cathodes 7a to 7c.

Usually, in a semiconductor factory, a large number of process lines connected to the above-described sputtering film forming apparatus are installed in parallel. Then, at the time of maintenance, work such as target exchange is performed between the lines installed in parallel by using a worker or a transportation device. The semiconductor factory is maintained in a clean room environment to prevent contamination such as suspended particles, but in order to maintain a clean environment, it is economical and process efficient to construct such a maintenance space compactly. Requested.

In view of the above demands, the present invention provides a swivel mechanism that swivels around a vertical axis along one of the left and right edges of the vertical sputtering cathode, and the lower end of the vertical sputtering cathode. A vertical sputtering opening / closing apparatus was configured by providing an opening / closing mechanism that opens and closes about an axis line in a substantially horizontal direction. Main parts of the cathode switchgear will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 2 shows the above-described turning mechanism of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 2, on the side edge 20 side of the sputter cathode 7c, between the cathode support base 9c and the support leg 6a of the multi-sputter chamber 6, a cathode swivel cylinder 21 and a swivel hinge portion 22 are swung. It is connected by the mechanism. The turning hinge portion 22 is configured to be rotatable around the vertical rotation shaft 22c by the operation of the turning cylinder 21. A known cylinder can be used as the swivel cylinder 21 used for this purpose, and may be, for example, an air cylinder or a hydraulic cylinder as long as the swivel cylinder 21 has the ability to swivel the heavy cathode.

The cathode 7c can be opened and closed with respect to the sputtering chamber 6 by using the swivel mechanism described above and swiveling around the rotation axis in the vicinity of the side edge 20 in a vertical state. In the closed state of the cathode 7c, the cathode support 9c and the sputter chamber support leg 6b are fixed by the fixing screw 23 in order to ensure the close contact.

On the other hand, FIG. 3 shows the above-mentioned opening / closing mechanism of the present invention. With reference to FIG. 3, an opening / closing mechanism including a pair of cathode opening / closing cylinders 31 is provided at both ends of a horizontal rotating shaft 30 provided at a lower end edge of 7c. This opening / closing mechanism is operated by the operation of the cathode opening / closing cylinder 31.
It is configured to be rotatable around the horizontal rotation shaft 30.
A known cylinder can be used as the opening / closing cylinder 31 used for this purpose, and may be, for example, an air cylinder or a hydraulic cylinder as long as it has the ability to control opening / closing while supporting a cathode, which is a heavy object. In order to prevent wobbling due to the hinge portion 22 of the turning mechanism when the cathode 7c is opened and closed by using the opening and closing mechanism,
The supporting pillar 32 for opening and closing for fixing to the floor is provided with the roller 10.
Are provided in the vicinity of each of the above to improve the stability of the device when the opening / closing mechanism is activated. Then, such a turning mechanism and an opening / closing mechanism are used for all the sputtering cathodes 7.
a to 7c.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of a target replacement process performed at the time of maintenance using the cathode turning mechanism and opening / closing mechanism configured as described above.

The single-wafer multi-sputtering chamber 6 shown in FIG. 4 and surrounded by vertical sputtering cathodes 7a to 7c on three sides is a terminal portion of the vacuum chamber side system of the film forming apparatus shown in FIG. Therefore, in FIG. 1, the connection devices connected to the vacuum robot chamber 2 and subsequent ones are omitted. As described above, in the semiconductor factory, the process lines including the multi-sputtering chambers 6 as shown in FIG. 4 are often arranged in parallel, and the distance between adjacent lines affects the compactness of the device configuration. Sometimes. However, especially as the trend toward larger substrates has become established, the space between lines may become larger than before in order to secure a maintenance area for the vertical sputtering cathode, which is contrary to the above-mentioned compactification. There is nothing to do.

For this reason, the multi-sputtering chamber 6 is constructed by using the cathode opening / closing device of the present invention, and when the target is replaced during maintenance by the multi-sputtering chamber 6, first, the operation of the vacuum exhaust device (not shown) is stopped to sputter the chamber. With the internal pressure returned to atmospheric pressure, each of the fixing bolts 23 for fixing the cathode supporting portion 9c is removed as shown in FIG. 4 (a). Next, the swivel cylinder 21 constituting the cathode swirl mechanism shown in FIG. 2 is operated to swivel the cathode 7c around the rotary shaft 22c of the swivel hinge portion 22 and open the cathode 7c together with the support portion 9c in the front direction ( See FIG. 4B).

Further, as shown in FIG. 4 (c), when the cathode 7c is swung by a predetermined angle, a pair of support columns 32 are formed.
Grounding to the floor surface and supporting part 9c and cathode 7 connected to this
Securely fix the open state of c to the floor. And
Next, the opening / closing cylinder 31 of the cathode opening / closing mechanism shown in FIG.
Is operated to rotate the cathode 7c around the horizontal rotation shaft 8c, and as shown in FIG. 4D, the cathode 7c is tilted to the horizontal state with the target surface 40 as the upper surface. Of course, this two-step operation may be performed simultaneously.

After such a state, the fixing bolt of the backing plate integrally formed with the target is manually removed by an operator, or a heavy object such as a forklift (not shown) is attached to the upper end edge of the horizontal cathode 7c. Targets may be removed by moving the transportation equipment closer.

At the end of maintenance, the cathode 7
To return c to the original vertical state, the above reverse process may be followed. Such a process is performed for each of the sputtering cathodes 7a to 7c to complete the maintenance work.

[0024]

As is apparent from the above description, the vertical sputtering cathode opening / closing apparatus of the present invention is used, and the turning mechanism is operated so that the cathode, which occupies a large area in the horizontal state, is positioned relative to the film forming chamber. After making a diagonal adjustment and opening the cathode horizontally by the opening / closing device, it is easy to effectively use the space during maintenance.
And this improves the efficiency of the maintenance work.

Further, by using such an apparatus, it is possible to make the entire apparatus structure and line structure in the factory compact.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 Overall view of a single-wafer vertical sputtering film forming apparatus

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a turning mechanism of a vertical sputtering cathode switchgear.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an opening / closing mechanism of a vertical sputtering cathode opening / closing device.

[Figure 4] Target replacement process diagram

[Explanation of symbols]

6 Multi-sputtering room 7a to 7c Sputtering cathode 8a-8c Horizontal rotation axis 9a to 9c Cathode support part 20 Side edge of sputtering cathode 21 cathode swing cylinder 22 Hinge for turning 22c Vertical rotation axis 31 Cathode open / close cylinder 32 props 40 target surface

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A turning mechanism for turning a vertical sputtering cathode around a vertical axis along one of left and right edges of the cathode, and a substantially horizontal axis along a lower edge of the cathode. A vertical sputtering cathode opening / closing device, comprising: an opening / closing mechanism that opens and closes around. 2. The vertical sputtering cathode switchgear according to claim 1, wherein a power cylinder is used as the swivel mechanism and the switchgear.