JPH05226456A - Structure for mounting clean air unit of vertical substrate heat treatment device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily carry out a maintenance operation such as a maintenance check or a replacement operation done for a clean air unit by a method wherein the clean air unit is set movable throughout an area extending from an operating position to a take-out position adjacent to an open-close door in a handling area. CONSTITUTION:A clean air unit 13 is provided to the upper side of a filter case 15 in a casing 2 in such a manner that it is movable throughout an area extending from an operating position to a take-out position in a handling area 12 adjacent to an open-close door 1. A turnbuckle 25 is interposed between a front link 23a on an open-close door 1 side and the casing 2 and shortened as the open-close door 1 is opened, whereby the clean air unit 13 is separated upwards from a hollow casing 17 and smoothly moved to a take-out position from an operating position, and then a filter or a clean air unit is replaced. After a maintenance operation is finished, the clean air unit 13 is made to move from a take-out position to an operating position, and the turnbuckle 25 is extended.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is applied to various substrates such as semiconductor substrates and ceramics substrates for various heat treatments such as oxidation, annealing, CVD (chemical vapor deposition), and diffusion. In the upper side of the casing provided with an opening / closing door, a carrier storage box capable of accommodating substrate carriers in multiple stages is provided, and a heat treatment furnace is provided at the back side of the carrier storage box. In addition to providing a handling stage for accommodating a carrier for carriers, a boat handler for raising and lowering a substrate boat is provided below the heat treatment furnace, and a cassette handler is provided between the opening / closing door and the handling stage, and between the handling stage and the boat handler. A wafer handler is installed on the It relates to a mounting structure of the clean air unit of the vertical substrate heat treatment apparatus having a clean air unit respectively both lateral sides of the handling area containing the handler and the boat handler.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a mounting structure for a clean air unit of a vertical substrate heat treatment apparatus of this type, generally, both side walls of both lateral sides of a handling area of a casing are constructed to be opened and closed by rocking. The clean air unit is attached to each of the open / close wall parts, and both side wall parts of the casing are swingably opened / closed to take out the clean air unit attached to both lateral outer sides, and clean at both lateral side parts of the casing. It was configured as a so-called side-maintenance type in which the air unit was inspected and replaced.

[0003]

However, in the case of the conventional structure, it is necessary to swing and open both side wall portions of the casing at both lateral side portions of the casing and to provide maintenance spaces for performing maintenance. To do. Normally, this type of vertical substrate heat treatment apparatus is installed in a clean room with a large number of units arranged side by side, and it is necessary to secure a space for maintenance in addition to the installation space for these units. There was a drawback that the number of units that could be installed in the machine would decrease and production efficiency would decrease.

Further, the distance between adjacent vertical type substrate heat treatment apparatuses becomes large, and accordingly, the substrate transfer system also becomes large relative to the number of installed units, which increases the initial cost and is uneconomical.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and relates to a clean air unit provided on each lateral side of the handling area while vertical substrate heat treatment apparatuses can be arranged side by side without a gap. The purpose is to facilitate maintenance work such as maintenance inspection and replacement.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a carrier storage box capable of accommodating substrate carriers in multiple stages on the upper side in a casing provided with an opening / closing door on the front surface. A heat treatment furnace is provided at the back of the carrier storage box, a handling stage for storing the substrate carrier is provided below the carrier storage box, and a boat handler for raising and lowering the substrate boat is provided below the heat treatment furnace. A cassette handler is provided between the opening / closing door and the handling stage, and a wafer handler is provided between the handling stage and the boat handler, and both sides of the handling area accommodating the handling stage, the wafer handler and the boat handler. Clean air unit for each person In the mounting structure of the clean air unit of digits vertical substrate heat treatment apparatus, a clean air unit, constituting movably provided in the casing over the take-out position near the door to the use position of the handling area.

[0007]

According to the structure of the mounting structure of the clean air unit of the vertical substrate heat treatment apparatus of the present invention, the clean air unit is moved to the use position by pushing it into the casing from the opening / closing door side, and conversely. It is possible to perform maintenance work such as maintenance inspection and replacement as appropriate, such as by moving the filter to the opening / closing door side to move it to the removal position, replacing the filter, or replacing the entire clean air unit.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an overall vertical sectional side view showing an embodiment of a mounting structure of a clean air unit of a vertical substrate heat treatment apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a horizontal sectional view (a sectional view taken along the line AA of FIG. 1).
A carrier storage box 4 capable of accommodating the substrate carriers 3 in multiple stages is provided on the upper side of the casing 2 having the opening / closing door 1 on the front side, and the heat treatment furnace 5 is provided on the back side of the carrier storage box 4. On the other hand, a computer box 6 accommodating a computer is provided on the front side of the carrier storage box 4.

A handling stage 7 for accommodating the substrate carrier 3 is provided below the carrier accommodating box 4, and a boat handler 9 for elevating and lowering the substrate boat 8 is provided below the heat treatment furnace 5.

A cassette handler 10 is provided between the opening / closing door 1 and the handling stage 7, and a wafer handler 11 is provided between the handling stage 7 and the boat handler 9.

Clean air units 13 and 13 are provided on both lateral sides of a handling area 12 accommodating a handling stage 7, a wafer handler 11 and a boat handler 9, respectively.

Each of the clean air units 13 ... Attaches a ventilation member 14 to the handling area 12 side as shown in each of the vertical front view with a part of FIG. 3 omitted and the perspective view of the main part of FIG. In addition, the filter 16 is housed in the filter case 15.

Under the floor below the handling area 12,
A hollow casing 17 forming a ventilation space S is provided,
In the hollow casing 17, openings 18 are formed at locations corresponding to the lower portions of the respective clean air units 13 ... And a sealing rubber 19 that seals by pressure contact with the lower surface of the filter case 15 is provided around the openings 18 ... It is attached.

On the other hand, on the lower surface of the filter case 15,
A filter-side opening 20 is formed corresponding to the openings 18 ... And an intake fan 21 is provided at one end side in the left-right direction inside the hollow casing 17, and in the casing 2, a ventilation space S and one clean air are provided. Unit 1
3, 13 and the handling area 12, the other clean air units 13, 13 and the ventilation space S are circulated to maintain the pressure inside the casing 2 at the same level as the clean room side, and are formed on the opening / closing door 1. Carrier doorway 2
The inside of the casing 2 can be maintained in a clean atmosphere without taking in outside air from 2 and adding a structure such as an air curtain to the carrier inlet / outlet 22.

The filter case 15 in the casing 2 ...
The first guide rail 24a is connected to the upper side of the vehicle through front and rear links 23a and 23b so as to form a parallel four-link mechanism.
a to the second guide rail 24 via the intermediate guide 24b.
c is provided, the clean air units 13, 13 are attached to the second guide rail 24c, and the clean air units 13, ... Can be moved between the use position in the handling area 12 and the take-out position near the opening / closing door 1. Is configured.

A turnbuckle 25 is interposed between the front links 23a, 23a on the side of the open / close door 1 and the casing 2. By opening the open / close door 1 and shortening the turnbuckle 25, the clean air units 13 ... A state in which the clean air unit 13 ... Is moved from the take-out position to the use position after the maintenance work such as maintenance and inspection and replacement of the filter 16 is completed, while being moved upward from 17 to smoothly move from the use position to the take-out position. By extending the turnbuckle 25 with, the lower surface of the clean air unit 13 ...
It is configured so that it can be pressed into contact with 9.

As a structure for moving the clean air unit 13 between the use position and the take-out position, for example, pulleys are provided at the back and front sides of the casing 2, and a wire is wound around both pulleys.
Various configurations such as connecting the clean air unit 13 to the wire can be adopted.

The opening / closing door 1 is not limited to one that is opened and closed by swinging, but may be one that is attached and detached by, for example, a screw.

In addition, the side plate on the back side of the casing 2 is constructed so as to be attachable and detachable by means of screws, etc.
That is, not only from the clean room side, but also from the maintenance room side may be taken out.

[0021]

As described above, according to the mounting structure of the clean air unit of the vertical substrate heat treatment apparatus of the present invention, the filter is replaced, or the entire clean air unit is replaced as appropriate. Maintenance work such as inspection and replacement can be easily performed from the front opening and closing door side, so there is no need to secure maintenance space on both lateral outer sides of the casing as in the past, and the vertical substrate heat treatment device can be used without gaps. It can be installed side by side, and a lot of vertical substrate heat treatment equipment can be installed by fully utilizing the site area of the clean room, the substrate transfer system can be downsized, production efficiency can be improved, and initial cost can be reduced. The economy can be improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall vertical cross-sectional side view showing an embodiment of a mounting structure of a clean air unit of a vertical substrate heat treatment apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken along the line AA of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a vertical sectional front view with a part omitted.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a main part.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 ... Opening / closing door 2 ... Casing 3 ... Substrate carrier 4 ... Carrier storage box 5 ... Heat treatment furnace 7 ... Handling stage 8 ... Substrate boat 9 ... Boat handler 10 ... Cassette handler 11 ... Wafer handler 12 ... Handling area 13 ... Clean air unit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A carrier accommodating box capable of accommodating a substrate carrier in multiple stages is provided on the upper side in a casing having an opening / closing door on the front surface, and a heat treatment furnace is provided on the back side of the carrier accommodating box. A handling stage for storing the substrate carrier is provided below the storage box, and a boat handler for raising and lowering the substrate boat is provided below the heat treatment furnace, and a cassette handler is provided between the opening / closing door and the handling stage. Along with the provision of a wafer handler between the handling stage and the boat handler,
And, in the mounting structure of the clean air unit of the vertical substrate heat treatment apparatus in which the clean air units are provided on both lateral sides of the handling area accommodating the handling stage, the wafer handler and the boat handler, the clean air unit is A mounting structure for a clean air unit of a vertical substrate heat treatment apparatus, which is provided in the casing so as to be movable between a use position in a handling area and a take-out position near the opening / closing door.