JPH04142743A - Heat treatment device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To facilitate an accurate mounting of a boat positioning jig to an installation position by a method wherein in a device, which is positioned at a prescribed position, is placed, is inserted in a heat-treating furnace and is heat-treated, the positioning jig is mounted to a jig for position setting use mounted at a previously determined position. CONSTITUTION:A quartz positioning jig 12 is mounted into such a state that a jig 11 for position setting use is housed in a space surrounded with quartz circular rods 12A and 12B and quartz circular rods 12D and 12E, whereby the jig 12 is positioned at an accurate position. The jig 12 is fixed by the bars 12A and 12B, both end parts of which are pressed by press plates consisting of an SUS. The press plates are fixed by screwing on a boat placing stage 5 or the like. Moreover, the jig 12 is mounted at a position positioned by the jig 11 of the same constitution as that of the jig 12 also on the side of the other end part in the longitudinal direction of a boat 7 and is mounted at an accurate position.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Industrial application field]

The present invention relates to a heat treatment apparatus.

[Conventional technology]

The manufacturing process of semiconductor devices includes a heat treatment process for oxidizing the surface of the semiconductor wafer and diffusing impurities, and this process is performed in a batch process using a vertical or horizontal heat treatment furnace. In this heat treatment process, during loading, the semiconductor wafer is transferred from a cassette serving as a carrier to an empty quartz boat for heat treatment placed on a boat mounting stand of a boat transfer device. Then, the quartz boat loaded with multiple semiconductor wafers after the transfer is completed is moved from the boat mounting table to the insertion mechanism (boat loader) into the heat treatment furnace, and is inserted into the heat treatment furnace without touching the furnace wall. A boat is brought in and semiconductor wafers are heat-treated. When unloading, the boat that has undergone heat treatment is pulled out from the heat treatment furnace without touching the furnace wall, and placed again on the boat mounting table of the boat transfer device.
Semiconductor wafers that have undergone heat treatment are transferred from the boat to empty cassettes. In horizontal furnaces, this operation is carried out using soft landing techniques. Incidentally, the transfer of semiconductor wafers between the cassette and the boat is automatically performed by a transfer mechanism. Therefore, the cassette is transported to a predetermined position by the transport device, and the boat is also positioned on the boat platform by the positioning tool so that it is at a predetermined position. In this case, the positioning tool comes into contact with the boat, so if it is made of metal, metal impurities will adhere to the boat, and the metal impurities will diffuse in the heat treatment furnace and contaminate the wafer.
This will degrade its performance. For this reason, the positioning tool is made of quartz or SiC, and is adjusted and attached to a predetermined position on the boat mounting table.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, the use of quartz or SiC causes stains. If this dirt adheres to the boat, there is a risk of contaminating the wafers in the same way as described above. Therefore, the quartz or SiC positioning tool must be removed and cleaned or replaced as appropriate. In this case, it is necessary to reinstall the cleaned or new positioning tool in the correct position, but in the conventional method, the work efficiency is extremely low if the positioning tool is adjusted each time. In view of the above points, it is an object of the present invention to provide a heat treatment apparatus in which it is easy to accurately attach the positioning tool for positioning a boat to a set position.

[Means to solve the problem]

In this invention, in an apparatus in which a boat carrying a plurality of objects to be treated is positioned and placed at a predetermined position by a positioning tool provided in advance, and is carried into a heat treatment furnace and heat-treated, The device is characterized in that the tool is attached to a positioning jig attached at a predetermined position.

[Effect]

The attachment position of the positioning tool is accurately adjusted by attaching it to the positioning jig, so the attachment of the positioning tool is easy.

【Example】

An embodiment of the apparatus according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. First, a heat treatment apparatus to which the present invention is applied will be explained with reference to FIG. In the cassette stocker 1, a plurality of cassettes 2 each containing, for example, 25 semiconductor wafers W are housed on the inside and the outside with the rail 4 in between. At the time of loading, a robot (not shown) places, for example, four inner cassettes on the carrier of the cassette carrier 3. The cassette transport device 3 transports these cassettes 2 without being guided by the rails 4 to a predetermined position on the side of the boat mounting table 5 of the photo transfer device. On the other hand, an empty boat 7 is positioned and placed on the boat mounting table 5 as will be described later. Then, the wafer transfer mechanism 6 transfers the wafers from the cassette 2 to the empty boat 7 on the boat mounting table 5. When the transfer of the wafers is completed, the boat 7 is transferred to a boat loader (not shown), and carried into a heat treatment furnace by the boat loader, where heat treatment is performed. At the time of unloading, the heat-treated Poldor is pulled out from the heat treatment furnace, and the boat 7 is placed on the boat mounting table 5 from the boat loader and positioned. Then, the processed wafers are transferred from the boat 7 to an empty cassette of the cassette transfer device 3 by the wafer transfer device 6. When the transfer is completed, the cassette transport device 3 is moved to the cassette station 1, and then a robot (not shown) moves the cassette containing the processed wafer to the outside of the cassette stocker 1. Next, the boat transfer device will be explained. That is, FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 show the part of the boat mounting table 5 on the heat treatment furnace side. The jig 1 is accurately positioned at a predetermined position and is attached, for example, by screwing. This position setting jig 11 is composed of four U-shaped members 11A to IID made of SUS in this example. That is, the position setting jig 11 is configured such that two of the four U-shaped members 11A and IIB are placed at a predetermined position in the longitudinal direction of the boat platform 5 with their opening sides facing each other. attached, and the remaining two U-shaped members 11
C and 11D are similarly installed at predetermined positions in a direction orthogonal to the longitudinal direction of the boat platform 5, with their opening sides facing each other. On the other hand, in this example, the positioning tool 12 includes six quartz round rods 1.
It is composed of 2A to 12F. That is, among them,
Two quartz round rods 12A and 12B, which are thicker than the others and have the same diameter, are provided in parallel and separated by a distance from the outside of the back plates of the U-shaped members 11A and IIB of the positioning jig 11. Then, this quartz round bar 12 is placed on these two quartz round bars 12A and 12B.
These quartz round bars 1 are perpendicular to the center line direction of A 12B.
The four quartz round bars 12C, 12D, 12E, and 12F, each having a length equal to the distance to the outermost side between 2A and 12B, are placed so that the extension direction of their end surfaces is in contact with the outer peripheral side surface of the round bars 12A and 12B. installed and configured. In this case, the two outer quartz round bars 12C, 12F have the same diameter, and the two inner quartz round bars 12D, 12E also have the same diameter, but the diameter of the outer round bars 12C, 12F is the same. The diameter is larger than that of the inner round rods 12D and 12E. The distance between the two inner quartz round bars 12D and 12E is the distance between the outer back plates of the U-shaped members 11C and IID installed in the width direction of the boat mounting table 5 of the positioning jig 11. are mounted a distance apart. Moreover, this quartz round bar 12D
, 1.2E is the distance between the outer peripheral sides of the protrusions 7A and 7B provided along the longitudinal direction of the boat 7 on the bottom of the boat 7.
is selected to be equal to the distance between the opposing surfaces. The quartz positioning tool 12 includes quartz round bars 12A, 12B and quartz round bar 12D, as shown in FIGS.
, 12E, the positioning jig 11 is installed in such a manner as to be housed therein, and thereby the positioning tool 12 is positioned at an accurate position. The positioning tool 12 is fixed by having both ends of the round bars 12A and 12B pressed by presser plates 31 and 32 made of SUS. The holding plates 31 and 32 are fixed to the boat mounting table 5 by screwing or the like. Note that the positioning tool 12 is attached to the other end of the boat 7 in the longitudinal direction at a position set by a positioning jig 11 having a similar configuration, so that it is attached at an accurate position. A boat sensor 13 is provided near the positioning tool 12 on the heat treatment furnace side. This boat sensor 13 is
A vertically movable round bar 14 has a contact part 15 with the boat 7 made of quartz at the upper end. Further, as shown in FIG. 3, a limit switch 16.1 is attached to the lower end of the round bar 14.
A ring 18 is attached to press the contact pieces 16A, 17A of 7. The boat sensor 13 is usually a round bar 14
is elastically biased upward, and limit switch 1
6.1'7 is off. Then, when the boat 7 is placed and the round bar 14 descends due to its weight, the press ring 1
8 presses contact pieces 16A and 17A, turning on limit switches 16 and 17. Further, a boat pressing device 20 that is moved in the longitudinal direction of the boat mounting table 5 by an air cylinder mechanism 21 is provided closer to the heat treatment furnace than the positioning tool 12 on the boat mounting table 5 . A quartz pressing member 22 is attached to a portion of the boat pressing device 20 facing the positioning tool 12. The boat 7 is loaded from above onto the boat mounting table 5 of the boat transfer device configured as described above, and the end of the boat 7 on the heat treatment furnace side is placed as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. It is placed between the positioning fixture 12 and the quartz pressing member 22 of the boat pressing device 20. Then, the bottom of the boat 7 presses the quartz contact portion 15 of the boat sensor 13 downward as shown in FIG. Therefore, the round bar 14 descends,
The pressing ring 18 at the lower end presses the contact pieces 16A, 17A of the limit switches 16, 17, and these limit switches 16, 17 are turned on. Therefore, the boat sensor 13 detects that the boat 7 is placed. Further, when the boat 7 is placed on the positioning tool 12 of the boat mounting table 5, protrusions 7A, 7 are provided on the bottom of the boat 7 along the longitudinal direction at predetermined positions in the short side direction of the boat.
As shown in FIG. 4, the quartz round bars 12D and 12E of the positioning tool 12 are properly fitted between the positions B, and the boat 7 is positioned in the short side direction. When the boat sensor 13 detects that the boat 7 is placed, the air cylinder mechanism 21 is activated.
Pull the pressing member 21 toward the end surface of the boat 7. Then, the pressing member 21 comes into contact with the end surface of the boat 7, and the inner surface of the end of the boat is pressed against the positioning tool 12 as shown in FIG. 4, so that the boat 7 is positioned in the longitudinal direction. In the present invention, after removing the positioning tool 12 and cleaning dirt or replacing it, the positioning tool 12 can be installed in an accurate position by simply fitting it into the positioning jig 11 and attaching it. I can do it. Note that in the above example, the positioning tool 12 is made of quartz or may be made of SiC. Further, the heat treatment furnace may have a multistage furnace configuration or a single stage configuration.

【Effect of the invention】

As explained above, according to the present invention, the boat positioning tool can be attached to the boat mounting base using the positioning jig that is attached with accurate position adjustment in advance. To easily and reliably attach a finishing tool to an accurate position. Therefore, the positioning tool can be easily replaced and reinstalled after cleaning.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a plan view of the main part of this invention, Fig. 2 is a front view thereof, Fig. 3 is a left side view thereof, Fig. 4 is a diagram for explaining the boat sensor, and Fig. 5 is a diagram illustrating this invention. FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the overall outline of the applied heat treatment apparatus. 1: Cassette stocker 2; Cassette 5: Boat mounting stand 7; Boat 11; Positioning jig 12; Positioning tool 13; Boat sensor

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] An apparatus in which a boat carrying a plurality of objects to be processed is positioned and placed at a predetermined position by a positioning tool provided in advance, and carried into a heat treatment furnace for heat treatment, comprising: A heat treatment apparatus characterized in that a finishing tool is attached to a position setting jig attached at a predetermined position.