JPH0239531A - Rotary processing equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To completely prevent air invasion into a chamber and dust generation by providing a mechanism which puts cleaning fluid in the flowing condition at least for a period requiring airtight in a gap to a rotary shaft passing through a chamber. CONSTITUTION:A bush 21 is fixed along the inner peripheral surface of the through hole 1b of a shaft part seal mechanism 20, and a gap 22 is provided between the inner peripheral surface and the outside surface of a rotary shaft 3. Also, an annular outside periphery groove 23 is formed inside a bush 21, and on the inside periphery side of the outside periphery groove 23 a group 24 of narrow nozzles composed of a number of narrow nozzles 24a, 24a... are bored radially toward the rotary shaft 3. This way, clean fluid is always put in the flowing condition to the gap 22 and this is sealed airtightly. The setting of the flowing condition is in a period at least to maintain the air tight condition. The fluid supplied from a clean fluid supply mechanism 12 is supplied once to the outside periphery groove 23, and then it is supplied to the gap 22 through each small orifice nozzle 24a, 24a.... And the through part of the rotary shaft 3 checks the outflow of the clean fluid toward a rotation source mechanism 4 by means of a mechanical seal 17.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Purpose of the invention] (Industrial application field) The present invention relates to a rotary processing device.

(Prior Art) In a semiconductor manufacturing process, Ueno 1 cleaning, wet etching, and resist stripping are performed.

When performing such washing and drying processing in a batch manner,
Rotary processing devices such as those shown below are often used.

That is, a support part for a workpiece such as a semiconductor wafer is provided in a closed chamber and is connected via a rotation shaft to a rotation source mechanism placed outside the chamber. The cassette holder is configured such that a cassette holder containing semiconductor wafers is set therein. Then, while rotating the processing object support part, a liquid processing agent such as a rinsing liquid is uniformly supplied to the semiconductor wafers in the cassette from a nozzle arranged in the chamber by a spray method or a spray method. Clean the area. After this,
Even after the supply of rinsing liquid is stopped, the rotation continues to perform drying.

Moreover, such a rotary processing apparatus may be used only for drying processing of the object to be processed without supplying a liquid processing agent. Furthermore, it is also used for treatment with acid and alkaline solutions.

Incidentally, the above-described processing such as cleaning and drying of semiconductor wafers needs to be performed in a clean atmosphere in order to prevent particles, impurities, etc. from adhering to the semiconductor wafers. For this reason, the loading/unloading port of the processed material provided in the chamber is configured to be hermetically sealed with a gasket or the like to prevent outside air from entering.

(Problem to be Solved by the Invention) However, in rotary processing equipment such as the above-mentioned cleaning/drying equipment, there is a part through which the rotating shaft passes through the chamber, and the outside air is Infiltration is a problem.

For this reason, measures have been taken to prevent the intrusion of outside air by using mechanical seals, magnetic fluid seals, or by locally exhausting the penetrating portion (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 58-213413
No. 55-104057, No. 54-825
No. 2, Japanese Patent Publication No. 82-14223, etc.) However, mechanical seals generate dust from themselves, and other sealing methods cannot provide a completely airtight seal.

In order to maintain a clean atmosphere inside the chamber, airtight sealing between the chamber and the rotating shaft has become a problem, and there has been a strong desire for a sealing mechanism that can completely seal this shaft. .

The present invention was made in order to address the problems of the prior art, and is a rotary processing device that makes it possible to completely airtightly seal the rotating shaft of a rotary processing device with a relatively simple structure. The purpose is to share the equipment.

[Configuration of the Invention (Means for Solving the Problems) In other words, the rotary processing apparatus of the present invention has a processing object accommodating portion disposed in a sealed chamber that is connected to a rotation source disposed outside the chamber with a rotating shaft. In a rotary processing apparatus that performs processing while rotating a support provided in the chamber, a cleaning fluid is supplied to the gap between the rotating shafts passing through the chamber for at least a period that requires airtightness. It is characterized by the provision of a mechanism to bring it into a fluid state.

(Function) A clean fluid, such as pure water or an inert gas, is constantly flowed from the chamber side in the direction of the rotating shaft into the gap in the opening into which the rotating shaft is loosely inserted. By constantly filling the gap formed between the chamber with fluid evenly and without any gaps, it is possible to completely isolate the inside of the chamber from the outside, and there is no mechanical sliding contact. There is no need to worry about dust generation. Therefore, the inside of the chamber is constantly maintained in a clean atmosphere.

When deformed, the magnetic fluid moves in a direction that closes the gap, but the present invention is characterized in that it constantly flows in the gap.

(Example) Hereinafter, an example in which the shaft sealing mechanism of the rotary processing apparatus of the present invention is applied to the rotating shaft of a rinser dryer will be described with reference to the drawings.

A turntable 2 is disposed in a cylindrical chamber 1 made of, for example, a Teflon coating material. It is connected to a rotation source mechanism 4 disposed outside the chamber 2 by a rotation shaft 3 loosely inserted into the hole 1b. Further, on the upper surface of the turntable 2, a plurality of holder support parts 7, for example, 4 holder support parts 7, which fixedly support a cassette holder 6 containing a large number of objects to be processed, such as semiconductor wafers 5, are arranged at equal intervals in the outer circumferential direction.
It has been installed in some places.

Above the center of the turntable 2, surrounded by the cassette holder 6, there is a supply pipe 9 suspended from above, in which a number of cleaning nozzles 8, which supply a rinsing liquid such as pure water, are installed. It is set up. This cleaning nozzle 8 is installed so that the rinsing liquid is uniformly supplied to a large number of semiconductor wafers 5 housed in the cassette holder 6.

Further, at the upper part of the chamber 1, a lid part 1c, which serves as a loading/unloading entrance for the cassette holder 6, is provided so as to open and close upward with the vicinity of the center as a fulcrum. This lid portion 1c is configured to be in airtight contact with the main body of the chamber 1 through a gasket 10 in the closed state.

A shaft sealing mechanism 20 using clean fluid for the rotating shaft 3 is provided on the inner peripheral side of a through hole 1b provided on the bottom surface 1a of the chamber 1 and into which the rotating shaft 3 is loosely inserted.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, this shaft sealing mechanism 20 has a bushing 21 fixed along the inner circumferential surface of the through hole 1b, and the inner circumferential surface of the bushing 21 and the rotating shaft 3 are connected to each other. A predetermined gap, for example, a gap 22 of about 0.5 mm is provided between the outer surface and the outer surface.

An annular outer circumferential groove 23 is formed in the jacket 21, and a large number of small hole nozzles 24a, 2 are formed on the inner circumferential side of the outer circumferential groove 23.
A small hole nozzle group 24 formed by 4a... is formed by being bored radially toward the rotating shaft 3. This fine-hole nozzle 24a has a state in which a clean fluid is constantly flowing in the gap 22 between the rotating shaft 3 and the bushing 21, for example, a liquid such as pure water or a gas such as nitrogen gas is constantly flowing uniformly and without gaps. A large number of them are formed so as to airtightly seal this gap 22. The setting of this fluid state is at least a period in which an airtight state is maintained.

Further, the outer circumferential groove 23 is connected to the clean fluid supply mechanism 12 via the fluid supply piping 11.
The fluid supplied from 2 is once supplied to the outer circumferential groove 23 as shown by the solid line arrow in the figure, and from this outer circumferential groove 23 it passes through each of the small hole nozzles 24 a, 24 a .
is supplied to

Above the shaft sealing mechanism 20, a shielding plate 13 is fixed to the rotating shaft 3 and is inclined downward on the outer peripheral side so as to prevent the fluid supplied from the clean gas supplying mechanism 12 from scattering toward the object to be treated. ing.

Further, a discharge port 14 is provided on the outer peripheral side of the bottom surface 1b of the chamber 1 for discharging the cleaning fluid used for the shaft seal and the rinsing liquid used for cleaning. It is slightly sloped.

Furthermore, below the shaft seal mechanism 20, a receiving part 15 is installed at the lower part of the bottom surface 1a of the chamber 1 for receiving the clean fluid used for the shaft seal that has flowed downward. Also, a discharge port 16 is provided, and the bottom surface is slightly inclined toward the discharge port 16.

A mechanical seal 17 prevents the clean fluid used for the shaft seal from flowing out in the direction of the rotation source m ti 4 through the penetrating portion of the rotating shaft 3 in the receiving portion 15 .

Further, the rotating shaft 3 is rotatably supported by a bearing 19 in a housing 17 provided under the mechanical seal 17.

In the rinser dryer having the above configuration, the clean fluid supply mechanism 1
2 to the gap 22 between the bushing 21 and the rotating shaft 3.
The rinsing liquid is supplied to the chamber 1 to airtightly seal the penetrating portion of the rotating shaft 3 in the chamber 1, and while rotating the turntable 2, the rinsing liquid is injected from the cleaning nozzle 8 to clean the semiconductor wafer 5.
cleaning and drying is performed by stopping the supply of rinsing liquid.

In this way, the gap between the rotating shaft and the chamber can be reduced by flowing clean fluid such as pure water or inert gas uniformly and without gaps from the chamber side toward the rotating shaft through the part of the chamber through which the rotating shaft passes. It is possible to ensure an airtight seal. Therefore, it is possible to completely prevent outside air from entering through this shaft sealing mechanism, and there is no dust generated from the shaft sealing mechanism, making it possible to constantly maintain a clean atmosphere inside the chamber. It is possible to prevent particles and impurities from adhering to objects to be processed, such as the like, leading to improved processing yields.

Although the above embodiment describes an example in which the shaft sealing mechanism of the present invention is applied to a rinser dryer, the present invention is not limited to this (for example, it can be applied to a rinser dryer using various liquid processing agents, etc.). The present invention can be applied as a shaft sealing mechanism for various types of rotary processing devices that require atmospheric control within a chamber, such as devices that uniformly process objects to be processed through rotation, and centrifugal dehydrators.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, it is possible to reliably seal the shaft sealing mechanism of a rotary processing device airtight, completely preventing outside air from entering the chamber and dust generation. This makes it possible to prevent

Therefore, it can greatly contribute to improving the yield of various processes.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of a rinser dryer to which a shaft sealing mechanism of an embodiment of the present invention is applied, FIG. 2 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of the shaft sealing mechanism of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is the second
FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken along line XX in the figure. 1... Chamber, 2... Turntable, 3... Rotation shaft, 4... Rotation source mechanism, 5... Semiconductor wafer 6 ...Cassette holder, 7...Holder support part, ]2...
... Clean fluid supply mechanism, 20 ... Shaft seal mechanism, 21 ... Bush, 24 ... Pore nozzle group.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A processing object accommodating portion disposed in a sealed chamber is connected to a rotation source disposed outside the chamber via a rotation shaft,
In a rotary processing apparatus that performs processing while rotating a support provided in the chamber, a mechanism is provided in which a cleaning fluid is made to flow in a gap between the rotating shafts passing through the chamber for at least a period that requires airtightness. A rotary processing device characterized by being provided with.