JP2530585Y2 - Clamping device in substrate rotary dryer - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method of fixing a carrier containing a substrate to be processed such as a semiconductor substrate (hereinafter simply referred to as a "substrate") to a rotor and rotating the carrier to attach a liquid to the substrate. The present invention relates to a clamp device in a substrate rotary drying device for draining and drying a droplet.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 5 is a view showing a substrate rotating and drying apparatus provided with a conventional clamping device. In this substrate drying apparatus, as shown in the figure, the peripheral wall 2 of the chamber 1 is formed in a substantially circular shape, and the rotor 5 rotated by the rotary drive motor 7 causes the rotation center G to be eccentric with respect to the chamber peripheral wall 2. And is arranged in the chamber 1. An intake port 3 is provided on the eccentric chamber peripheral wall 2a, and a forced exhaust port 4 is provided on the opposite chamber peripheral wall 2b.

[0003] The clamp device 10 is mounted on the rotor 5 and is configured to fix the carrier 6 and the substrate W to the rotor 5. In other words, the clamp device 10 includes a pair of carrier holders 11, 12 mounted on the rotor 5 and a pair of left and right substrate holders 15, 15 rotatable around the support shaft 16.
And a rotation mechanism (not shown) for rotating the substrate holders 15, 15. The substrate holder 15 is
A carrier holding portion 15a having one end pivotally supported by the support shaft 16 and holding the upper edge of the carrier 6 at a predetermined position shown in the figure, and a contact portion 15b extending from the other end of the carrier holding portion 15a
Consists of Therefore, after the carrier 6 is held by the carrier receiving members 11 and 12, when the substrate holders 15 and 15 are respectively rotated in predetermined directions by the rotation mechanism, as shown in FIG. 6, the carrier 6 is fixed to the rotor 5 in cooperation with the carrier receiving members 11, 12, and the contact portion 15b
Is brought into contact with the outer peripheral portion of the substrate W to prevent the substrate W from jumping out of the opening of the carrier 6.

[0004] When the fixing of the carrier 6 and the substrate W to the rotor 5 is completed, the motor 7 operates to rotate the carrier 6, the substrate W and the rotor 5 integrally, and as a result, the centrifugal force generated by the rotation causes the motor 6 to rotate. The droplet is cut and the substrate W is dried.

[0005]

However, in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, the size of a substrate is reduced from 6 inches to 8
In the transition period, from the viewpoint of production efficiency, it is required to randomly process 6-inch and 8-inch substrates in a semiconductor manufacturing process.
To cope with this, the outer dimensions of the 6-inch carrier and the 8-inch carrier are unified.

[0006] Therefore, the following problems occur when the 6-inch and 8-inch substrates are dried at random by the substrate drying apparatus. That is, there is no particular problem in fixing the carrier 6 to the rotor 5 of the substrate drying apparatus, but it is necessary to replace the contact portion 15b according to the size of the substrate W. Therefore, every time the size of the substrate W conveyed to the substrate drying apparatus changes, a replacement operation is required, which is a serious problem in terms of production efficiency. Also, 6
It is conceivable to prepare a substrate drying apparatus for 8 inches and a substrate drying apparatus for 8 inches, and replace the substrate drying apparatus according to the change in the substrate size. In this case, however, the production line is stopped by the above replacement work. There must be.

In view of the above problems, the present invention provides a clamping device in a substrate rotary drying apparatus that can continuously perform a drying process without replacing a main part even if the size of a substrate to be processed is changed. The purpose is to provide.

[0008]

According to the present invention, there is provided a carrier accommodating a plurality of substrates to be processed, a rotatable rotor for fixing the carrier and draining and drying liquid droplets attached to the substrate. In order to achieve the above object, (a) a carrier receiver mounted on a rotor to engage with the carrier, and (b) the following components Ie
(b-1) a carrier holding portion that is rotatably supported at one end with respect to the rotor, holds the upper edge of the carrier engaged with the carrier receiving member in a clamped state, and fixes the carrier to the rotor;
-2) a swinging portion that is swingably supported at the other end of the carrier holding portion, and (b-3) a biasing member that biases the swinging portion to maintain the swinging portion in a predetermined state. And a substrate holder comprising a substrate holder, wherein the oscillating portion prevents the substrate from jumping out of the carrier during rotation of the rotor due to the urging force of the urging member, even if any of a plurality of substrates is accommodated in the carrier. Maintain a possible posture.

[0009]

According to the clamping device in the substrate rotating and drying apparatus according to the present invention, the swinging portion is operated by the urging force of the urging member so as to be maintained in a predetermined state regardless of which substrate is stored in the carrier. Thus, a posture capable of preventing the substrate from jumping out of the carrier during rotation of the rotor is maintained.

[0010]

FIG. 1 is a view showing a substrate rotary drying apparatus provided with a clamping device according to the present invention. As can be seen from a comparison between FIG. 1 and FIG. 5, this embodiment differs from the conventional example in the clamp device, and the other configuration is the same. Therefore, in the following, the configuration and operation of the clamp device according to the embodiment will be described in detail, but other configurations will be assigned the same or corresponding reference numerals as in the conventional example, and description thereof will be omitted.

The clamp device 20 according to this embodiment is
Carrier receiving members 11 and 12 and a pair of left and right substrate holders 2
2 and 22. Carrier receiver 11, 1
2 is finished to a shape engageable with the carrier 6 as shown in FIG. In this embodiment, when the carrier 6 is engaged with the carrier receivers 11 and 12 irrespective of the 6-inch substrate and the 8-inch substrate, the center position g of the substrate W stored in the carrier 6 becomes the rotation center G of the rotor 5. On the other hand, it is configured to be located on the lower edge side of the carrier 6. The reason for this configuration is that the carrier 6 is fixed to the rotor 5 and is rotated at high speed, as described later, but the centrifugal force acting on the carrier 6 is received by the carrier receiver 11 at that time. is there. In this embodiment, since the random processing of the two types of substrates W is assumed, the outer shape (solid line) of the carrier 6 is the same, but the internal structure (dashed-dotted line) for 6 inches and 8 inches is used. ) Are different.

FIG. 2 is a view showing the structure of the substrate holder.
The substrate holder 22 has a carrier holding portion rotatably supported by the rotor 5 in the vicinity of the upper edge of the carrier 6 in which one end (the left hand side in the figure) is engaged with the carrier receivers 11 and 12. 23, and is configured to rotate between a clamp position (solid line in FIG. 2) and an unclamping position (dashed line in FIG. 2) by a clamp driving mechanism (not shown). When the carrier pressing portion 23 is located at the clamp position (hereinafter, this state is referred to as a “clamp state”), the carrier pressing plate 23 a attached to the intermediate portion of the carrier pressing portion 23 presses the upper edge of the carrier 6. The carrier 6 is fixed to the rotor 5 in cooperation with the carrier receiving members 11 and 12. Needless to say, instead of attaching the carrier holding plate 23a to the carrier holding portion 23, the upper edge of the carrier 6 may be directly held by the intermediate portion of the carrier holding portion 23. May be configured so that the upper edge of the carrier 6 is directly or indirectly pressed by the carrier pressing portion 23 in the clamped state.

A swinging portion 24 is supported at the other end (right hand side in the figure) of the carrier holding portion 23 so as to be swingable around a support shaft 25. First and second contact portions 26 and 27 are attached to both ends of the swinging portion 24, respectively. A spring member (not shown), which is an urging member, is attached to the swinging portion 24, and the first and second contact portions 2 are provided.
While the external force is not acting on 6, 27, it is maintained in the neutral state, which is the predetermined state in the present embodiment shown in FIG.

Next, the function of the clamp device 20 configured as described above will be described separately for an 8-inch substrate and a 6-inch substrate. First, while the clamp device is in the unclamped state shown by the broken line in FIG.
The carrier 6 accommodating the inch substrate W8 is set in the substrate drying apparatus. That is, the carrier 6 is engaged with the carrier receiving members 11 and 12 as shown in FIG. 1, and the center position g of the substrate W8 accommodated in the carrier 6 is set. Is positioned on the lower edge side of the carrier 6 with respect to the rotation center G of the rotor 5. Thereafter, when the carrier holding section 23 is rotated by the clamp driving mechanism and the clamp device 20 is in the clamped state, the carrier 6 is fixed to the rotor 5 as described above. On the other hand, as shown in FIG.
The upper edge portion of the substrate W8 pushes up the first contact portion 26 in the direction of the arrow while opposing the urging force of the spring member, and the swinging portion 24 swings by a certain angle from the neutral state (the dashed line in the figure). Thus, in the clamped state, the upper edge of the substrate W8 is always in contact with the first contact portion 26. That is, even if the swinging unit 24 rotates the rotor 5 for drying the substrate after the clamping of the substrate W8 is completed, the carrier 6 of the substrate W8 may be rotated.
It keeps a posture that can prevent it from jumping out.

Next, a case of a 6-inch substrate will be described. The operation of setting the carrier 6 accommodating the 6-inch substrate W6 in the substrate drying apparatus and fixing the carrier 6 to the rotor 5 is the same as the case of the 8-inch substrate described above, and the description is omitted here. On the other hand, the 6-inch substrate W6 is fixed as follows. That is, as shown in FIG. 4, in the clamped state, the second contact portion 27 is a part of the carrier 6, in this embodiment, the tapered portion 6 of the carrier 6.
a, the swinging portion 24 swings from the neutral state (indicated by the dashed line in FIG. 4) by a predetermined angle in the direction opposite to that of the preceding 8-inch substrate while opposing the urging force of the spring member. . As a result, the first contact portion 26 is positioned so as to contact the upper edge of the 6-inch substrate W6. That is, even if the swing unit 24 rotates the rotor 5, the posture is maintained such that the substrate W 6 can be prevented from jumping out of the carrier 6. In this embodiment, the second contact portion 27 is brought into contact with the tapered portion 6a of the carrier 6 so that the first contact portion 26 comes into contact with the upper edge of the substrate W6. This does not necessarily mean that the contact portion 26 must be brought into contact with the substrate W6. Even when the first contact portion 26 is positioned so as to be located near the upper edge of the substrate W6 in the clamped state, The same effect is obtained. This is because the center position g of the substrate W6 stored in the carrier 6 is located on the lower edge side of the carrier 6 with respect to the rotation center G of the rotor 5,
At the time of high-speed rotation, centrifugal force acts on the lower edge side of the carrier 6 and the substrate W6 does not jump out of the carrier 6.
Even if the substrate W6 moves to the upper edge side of the carrier 6 in the initial stage of the rotation of the rotor 5, if the amount of movement is small, the centrifugal force acts on the substrate W6 when moving to the high-speed rotation stage. Returns to the lower edge of the carrier 6. Therefore, as long as the movement of the substrate W6 in the initial stage of rotation can be limited to a certain level or less, the substrate W6
Can be prevented from jumping out.

As described above, according to this embodiment, even if the size of the substrate W is different, the first contact portion 26 abuts on the upper edge of the substrate or in the vicinity of the upper edge in accordance with the substrate size. , The substrate can be randomly processed, and even if the size of the processed substrate is changed, the drying process can be performed continuously without replacing the main components.

[0017]

According to the present invention, regardless of the size of the substrate stored in the carrier, the swinging portion is acted on by the urging force of the urging member so as to maintain a predetermined state. In this configuration, it is possible to prevent the board from jumping out of the carrier, regardless of the size of the board. Processing can be performed continuously without performing replacement or the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a substrate rotary drying device provided with a clamp device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a substrate holder.

FIG. 3 is a view showing the operation of the substrate holder of FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a view showing the operation of the substrate holder of FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a view showing a substrate rotating and drying device provided with a conventional clamping device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 5 rotor 6 carrier 11, 12 carrier receiving device 20 clamping device 22 carrier holding device 23 carrier holding portion 24 swing portion 26 first contact portion 27 second contact portion W substrate W6 6 inch substrate W8 8 inch substrate

Claims (1)

(57) [Scope of request for utility model registration] 1. A substrate rotary drying apparatus comprising: a carrier accommodating a plurality of sizes of substrates to be processed; and a rotatable rotor for fixing the carrier and rotatably drying liquid droplets attached to the substrate. A clamp device, comprising: (a) a carrier receiver mounted on a rotor so as to engage with the carrier; and (b) the following components, that is, (b-1) one end thereof is rotatable with respect to the rotor. (B-2) a carrier holding portion for holding the upper edge portion of the carrier engaged with the carrier receiving member in a clamped state and fixing the carrier to the rotor, and (b-2) the other end of the carrier holding portion swingably. A supported swinging portion, and (b-3) a biasing member for biasing the swinging portion to maintain the swinging portion in a predetermined state, and a substrate holder comprising: No matter which of the boards is stored, the swinging part is The clamping device in the substrate rotating drying device, characterized in that for holding the posture capable of preventing popping out of the substrate from the carrier at the time the rotor rotates by the biasing force of the biasing member.