JPH04299516A - Resist removing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide the title resist removing device working at high efficiency exposing no processed element such as wafer, etc., directly to plasma at all or exposing it for an extremely short time causing no damage to a semiconductor element, etc., at all. CONSTITUTION:The title resist removing device is equipped with a vacuum chamber 1, a specimen holder 4 kept at the temperature exceeding 200 deg.C in the vacuum chamber 1 and a gas feeder 2 blowing oxygen gas or the other gas mainly comprising oxygen gas upon a processed element A on the specimen holder 4.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a resist removing apparatus used for etching resist on a wafer when forming semiconductor elements.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art As a resist removing apparatus, an apparatus shown in FIG. 4 is known. In FIG. 4, 11 is a vacuum chamber, 12 is a gas inlet, 13 is a gas outlet, 14 is a sample holder, 15 is a high frequency electrode, and 16 is a high frequency power source. Then, the inside of the vacuum chamber 11 is evacuated, oxygen gas g is introduced from the gas inlet 12, and high frequency is applied to the high frequency electrode 15 to generate oxygen plasma inside the chamber 11, and the wafer on the sample holding table 14 is The resist coated on a is being etched.

0003

However, the conventional apparatus described above has a problem in that the wafer a is directly exposed to plasma, causing damage to semiconductor elements and the like.

[0004] The present invention provides an apparatus that can efficiently perform resist removal processing without damaging semiconductor elements, etc., by eliminating or extremely short exposure time of a workpiece such as a wafer to plasma. The purpose is to

[0005]

[Means for Solving the Problems] A resist removing apparatus according to the first invention of the present application includes a vacuum chamber, a sample holder arranged in the vacuum chamber and maintained at a temperature of 200° C. or higher, and an oxygen gas or an oxygen gas The present invention is characterized by comprising a gas supply means for blowing a gas as a main component onto the object to be processed on the sample holder.

A resist removing apparatus according to a second invention of the present application is characterized in that, in addition to the configuration of the first invention, it is equipped with a high-frequency discharge device whose discharge time is shorter than the discharge stop time.

A resist removing apparatus according to a third aspect of the present application includes a vacuum chamber, a sample holder disposed in the vacuum chamber, and a gas to be processed on the sample holder that supplies oxygen gas or a gas containing oxygen gas as a main component. A high-frequency discharge device that discharges intermittently, and a shutter that shields the object to be treated during discharge and opens the object to be treated while the discharge is stopped. .

[0008] A resist removing apparatus according to a fourth invention of the present application is characterized in that, in the third invention, the sample holding table is maintained at a temperature of 200°C or higher.

[0009]

[Operation] According to the first invention of the present application, the sample holding table is
Resist removal processing can be performed without generating plasma by simply maintaining the temperature at a temperature of .degree. C. or higher and blowing oxygen gas or a gas containing oxygen gas as a main component in a vacuum state.

According to the second invention of the present application, by simply adding the action of performing high-frequency discharge for a short time to the action of the first invention, it becomes possible to remove the resist with higher efficiency. Since the time that the object to be processed is exposed to the plasma is very short,
There is almost no damage to the object to be processed.

According to the third invention of the present application, high-frequency discharge is performed intermittently, and oxygen gas or a gas containing oxygen gas as a main component is blown in a vacuum state without directly exposing the workpiece to the high-frequency discharge. As a result, resist removal processing can be performed with higher efficiency than the first and second inventions. At this time, the object to be processed is prevented from being directly exposed to the plasma by the shutter, and damage to the object to be processed can be reduced.

According to the fourth invention of the present application, by setting the sample holding table at 200° C. or higher in the third invention, the resist removal process can be performed with much higher efficiency than when the temperature is lower than that. can.

[0013]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows a resist removing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, 1 is a vacuum chamber, 2 is a gas inlet provided at the top of the vacuum chamber 1, 3 is a gas outlet provided at the bottom of the vacuum chamber 1, and 4 is a sample placed inside the vacuum chamber 1. The holder 5 is a heater for heating the sample holder 4, and 6 is a heater control device for adjusting the temperature of the sample holder 4. A is a workpiece (such as a wafer) on whose surface a resist is deposited, and is placed on the sample holding table 4 . Oxygen gas or a gas G mainly composed of oxygen gas is introduced into the vacuum chamber 1 from the gas inlet 2 . The direction of the gas inlet 2 is determined so that the gas G is vertically supplied to the object A on the sample holding table 4 . The gas outlet 3 is connected to a vacuum pump (not shown).

Using the above apparatus, resist processing was performed under the following conditions. In other words, the sample holding table 4 is
At a constant temperature of ℃, oxygen gas G is supplied from gas inlet 2 at 10
0cm3, and the pressure inside the vacuum chamber 1 was increased to 300cm3.
mTorr. The resist is 1μ as the object to be processed A.
A wafer coated with 0.0 m was used.

As a result of the resist removal process performed under the above conditions, the resist was removed at a rate of 50 Å per minute.

Next, with the sample holding table 4 kept at a constant temperature of 250° C. and other conditions being the same, a resist removal process was performed, and as a result, the resist was removed at a rate of 70 Å per minute.

Furthermore, a resist removal process was carried out with the sample holding table 4 kept at a constant temperature of 150° C. and other conditions being the same, but almost no resist was removed.

From the above, the sample holding table 4 is heated to 200°C.
It has been found that the resist can be removed simply by maintaining the temperature above and blowing oxygen gas G in a vacuum state.

FIG. 2 shows a resist removing apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

This second embodiment is equipped with an electrode 7 on the top of the vacuum chamber 1 for applying a high frequency of 13.56 MHz, but the other structure is the same as that of the first embodiment (see FIG. 2 is given a common reference numeral and its explanation is omitted).

Using the apparatus shown in this second embodiment, the sample holding table 4 is kept at a constant temperature of 200° C., 100 cm 3 of oxygen gas G is introduced from the gas inlet 2, and the vacuum chamber 1 is
After setting the internal pressure to 300 mTorr and applying 200 W of high-frequency power to the electrode 7 to cause a tube discharge for 1 second,
Resist removal processing was performed by repeatedly performing an operation of stopping discharge for seconds. As a result, the resist was removed at a rate of 150 Å per minute from wafer (workpiece) A coated with 1 μm of resist.

Next, with the sample holding table 4 kept at a constant temperature of 250° C. and other conditions being the same, a resist removal process was performed, and as a result, the resist was removed at a rate of 200 Å per minute.

However, when resist removal was performed with the sample holding table 4 kept at a constant temperature of 150° C. and other conditions being the same, the resist was only removed at a rate of 20 Å per minute, and the resist processing speed suddenly increased. A decrease was observed.

[0025] From the above, the sample holding table 4 is heated to 200°C.
It has been found that by maintaining the temperature above, blowing oxygen gas G in a vacuum state, and performing high-frequency discharge for an extremely short period of time, the resist removal process can be performed with higher efficiency than in the case of the first embodiment.

It has also been found that if the temperature of the sample holder 4 is low (150° C. in the above case), the resist removal process cannot be performed efficiently even if high frequency discharge is applied.

FIG. 3 shows a resist removing apparatus according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

In this third embodiment, there is a space between the gas inlet 2 and the sample holding table 4, which covers the object to be treated A during discharge to block the discharge, and is open when the discharge is stopped and protects the object to be treated. It is equipped with a shutter 8 that operates so that the flow of gas G is irradiated vertically to A, but the other configuration is basically the same as the second embodiment (common reference numerals are shown in FIG. 3). ), and the explanation is omitted). The shutter 8 can be configured to take either a shielding position or a non-shielding position, for example, by rotating the rotating shaft 8a.

Using the apparatus shown in this third embodiment, the sample holding table 4 is kept at a constant temperature of 200° C., 100 cm 3 of oxygen gas G is introduced from the gas inlet 2, and the vacuum chamber 1 is
The resist removal process was performed by repeatedly performing an operation in which the internal pressure was set to 300 mTorr, high frequency power of 200 W was applied to the electrode 7, and the electrode 7 was discharged for 5 seconds, and then the discharge was stopped for 5 seconds. At this time, the shutter 8 covered the surface of the object A during discharge, and left the surface of the object A open while the discharge was stopped.

As a result, for a wafer (workpiece) A coated with 1 μm of resist, the resist was applied at a rate of 3000 per minute.
removed in Å.

Next, with the sample holding table 4 kept at a constant temperature of 250° C. and other conditions being the same, a resist removal process was performed, and as a result, the resist was removed at a rate of 3500 Å per minute.

Furthermore, with the sample holding table 4 kept at a constant temperature of 150° C. and other conditions being the same, a resist removal process was performed, and as a result, the resist was removed at a rate of 800 Å per minute.

From the above, the first embodiment and It has been found that the resist removal process can be performed with higher efficiency than in the case of the second embodiment. Furthermore, it was found that when the sample holding table 4 was kept at a temperature of 200° C. or higher, the resist processing efficiency was significantly higher than when the temperature was low.

[0034]

[Effects of the Invention] According to the first invention of the present application, resist removal processing can be performed without generating oxygen plasma,
The effect is that there is no damage to semiconductor devices or the like of the object to be processed.

According to the second invention of the present application, resist removal processing can be performed more efficiently than the first invention, and there is an effect that damage to semiconductor elements and the like of the object to be processed is hardly caused.

According to the third invention of the present application, resist removal processing can be performed more efficiently than in the first and second inventions, and there is an effect that almost no damage is caused to semiconductor elements or the like of the object to be processed.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, it is possible to perform the resist removal process most efficiently, and there is an effect that there is almost no damage to the semiconductor elements and the like of the object to be processed.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing a second embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a sectional view showing a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Vacuum chamber 2 Gas inlet 3 Gas outlet 4 Sample holding stand 5 Heater 6 Heater control device 7 High frequency electrode 8 Shutter A. Object to be treated G gas

Claims (4)

[Claims] Claim 1: a vacuum chamber; a sample holder disposed within the vacuum chamber and maintained at a temperature of 200° C. or higher;
A resist removal apparatus comprising a gas supply means for spraying oxygen gas or a gas containing oxygen gas as a main component onto an object to be processed on a sample holding table. 2. The resist removing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a high frequency discharge device whose discharge time is shorter than the discharge stop time. 3. A vacuum chamber, a sample holder disposed in the vacuum chamber, a gas supply means for blowing oxygen gas or a gas containing oxygen gas as a main component onto the object to be processed on the sample holder; A resist removing device comprising: a high-frequency discharge device that discharges electric current; and a shutter that shields the object to be processed during discharge and opens the object to be processed while the discharge is stopped. 4. The resist removing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the sample holding table is maintained at a temperature of 200° C. or higher.