JPH0824109B2 - Quartz glass wafer boat transfer jig - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to improvement of a quartz glass wafer boat transport jig for a horizontal furnace, and in particular, practicality of effectively suppressing a temperature rise of an edge holding portion. The present invention relates to an excellent wafer boat transfer jig.

[Conventional technology]

A quartz glass wafer boat transport jig for transporting a wafer boat into a horizontal furnace is a jig for loading and unloading a quartz glass boat on which a large number of semiconductor wafer boats are placed, without contacting the core tube wall. It is a jig for preventing the generation of silica particles by carrying.

This operation state will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. Figure 5 shows
FIG. 2 is a schematic partial cross-sectional view showing the state where the carrier jig is inserted into the furnace core tube. In the quartz glass wafer boat carrier jig 1, the end edge of the non-notched cylindrical portion is attached to the connecting fitting 7 of the driving device 6. It is configured to be held and fixed in a cantilever shape and moved horizontally in the axial direction, and is used as follows. A jig 1 having a wafer boat 5 in which a large number of wafers 4 are loaded in parallel in a notched portion 3 is mounted in a furnace core tube 9 heated to a predetermined temperature in an electric furnace for heat treatment having a heating body 8. Inserted in the
After the loading boat is installed in the furnace core tube 9, the transfer jig 1
Only itself is taken out. When the predetermined heat treatment of the semiconductor wafer in the furnace core tube is completed, the transfer jig 1 is reinserted into the furnace core tube 9 and lifts the installation boat 5 loaded with the heat treatment wafer 4 and carries it out by backward movement.

The jig 1 is attached to the driving portion by a cantilever, and is generally firmly fixed and held by a plurality of attachment connecting fittings 7. Although not shown in FIG. 1, an organic material having appropriate elasticity and rigidity, which is a very common conventional method, is applied as the interposition member. As these materials, organic materials having relatively high heat resistance are used. However, when the carrying jig 1 is inserted into the furnace core tube 9, its holding portion is heated to a high temperature by radiant heat of infrared rays. It has a disadvantage that it easily deteriorates and cantilever cannot be maintained, and the carrier jig rubs the furnace core tube. This is an important issue to be solved in heat treatment of semiconductor wafers.

As a countermeasure against this, the present inventors made an attempt to make the infrared radiant heat uniform by configuring the above-mentioned carrying jig 1 entirely by semi-transparent quartz glass containing fine bubbles. However, although the temperature rise in the holding part of this jig was moderated, when the transport jig was cleaned by etching, the bubbles on the surface were easily opened and impurities were taken into the open bubbles, which contaminate the inside of the furnace. Not only that, when the wafer boat is inserted into the high temperature furnace core tube, the temperature of the boat side of the loaded wafers, that is, the lower side temperature becomes high and the temperature distribution on the wafer surface becomes non-uniform, so it cannot be put to practical use. I knew that.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an improved wafer boat transfer jig that can stably perform semiconductor wafer heat treatment for a long period of time without the above disadvantages.

[Means for solving the problem]

In order to solve the above problems, the inventors of the present invention have developed many jigs, which are extremely practical, as a result of conducting many trials and researches on a transparent quartz glass carrying jig itself.

That is, the present invention is a transparent quartz glass wafer boat transport jig for transporting a semiconductor wafer boat into a horizontal furnace, in which semi-transparent transparent glass micro-bubbles are attached to the end of the jig that is attached to the transporting device driving unit. Provided is a quartz glass wafer boat transfer jig for a horizontal furnace, wherein a quartz glass layer is formed.

In the quartz glass wafer boat transport jig for a horizontal furnace of the present invention, it is important to form a semi-transparent quartz glass layer containing fine bubbles at the end portion on the drive device mounting side.

When such a semi-transparent quartz glass layer containing fine bubbles is formed, the infrared rays in the heating region in the furnace core tube are totally reflected in the transparent glass body and spread to the whole, but when they collide with the semi-transparent layer, scattering and absorption occur, The radiant heat causes the transparent / semi-transparent furnace side boundary portion to generate heat and raise the temperature. However, in the semi-transparent layer, the temperature drops sharply from the boundary to the edge side due to the large temperature drop gradient, and a sufficient temperature drop is obtained in the edge holding part. It was confirmed that the stability of the organic intervening buffer was significantly improved by the remarkable heat shielding property of the layer.

As will be easily understood from the above, the end portion forming the semi-transparent quartz glass layer containing fine bubbles in the present invention is such that the boundary portion of the semi-transparent layer on the furnace side has a sufficient infrared radiant heat from the fixed holding portion of the driving device. If it is on the furnace side that can obtain such a descent,
Therefore, in the present invention, the end portion includes the end portion region where such a temperature drop is achieved. From this perspective,
The portion of the jig attached to the driving device may be semitransparent or transparent.

The bubbles of such a semi-transparent quartz glass layer containing fine bubbles are preferably spherical or ellipsoidal spheres having a diameter of 15 to 1000 μm, for example, if it is smaller than this range, it is difficult to manufacture, and if it is large, the mechanical strength decreases. It is not preferable.

The jig of the present invention can be easily manufactured, for example, by producing a semi-transparent quartz glass tube containing fine bubbles, and cutting this into an appropriate thickness or length and fusing and integrating the end on the attachment side of the jig. Can be formed. Also, if necessary,
Further, transparent quartz glass may be fused and integrated with the end portion of the semi-transparent quartz glass tube containing the fine bubbles.

[Action]

The wafer boat transportation jig of the present invention, even when it is inserted into the furnace core tube, the holding and fixing portion of the transportation drive device is not exposed to abnormally high temperature, once attached,
The jig can be supported in a cantilever manner over a long period of time.

Next, the jig of the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a usage state of an example of a jig of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an enlarged perspective view of a mounting end portion of the jig. 3 (a) and 3 (b) are side views showing different locations of the semi-transparent quartz glass layer containing fine bubbles in the lifting jig (fork) of the present invention, and FIG. (A) to (d) are perspective views of different examples of the jig (fork) of the jig of the present invention.

In the figure, a conveying jig 1 made of quartz glass has a semi-transparent quartz glass layer 2 containing fine bubbles integrally formed at an end thereof.
The edge portion is connected and fixed by the connecting fitting 7 of the driving member 6 via the organic member. Quartz glass transport jig 1
A quartz glass boat (not shown) is mounted on the notch 3, and the quartz glass is inserted into and discharged from a quartz glass furnace core tube 9 heated by a heating body 8 in the furnace. In this case, the quartz glass fork is conveyed slowly in order to prevent the warp and slip of the wafer. Therefore, a part of the radiant heat passes through the transparent quartz glass and easily reaches the transport attachment end of the fork, but the infrared radiation is innumerable contained in the semitransparent quartz glass 4 formed at the attachment end 2. Scattered and irregularly reflected by the fine bubbles of. As a result, heat is generated at the transparent / semitransparent furnace side boundary portion, but instead, the temperature rise of the organic material in the holding portion is prevented.

The semi-transparent quartz glass layer 4 can be provided in the vicinity of the end portion slightly inside the edge portion, as shown in FIGS. 3 (b), 4 (b) and (d).

〔Example〕

 Next, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to specific examples.

The following four types of quartz glass wafer boat jigs used in the experiment all have the same shape with a length of about 2000 mm, an outer diameter of 120 mm and a wall thickness of 5 mm.

Example 1 A jig as shown in FIG. 3 (a) of FIG. 3 in which a portion up to 100 mm from the carry-in / out holding side edge was made semitransparent containing fine bubbles.

Example 2 A jig as shown in FIG. 3B, in which a semi-transparent quartz glass layer containing fine bubbles was formed between 100 mm and 200 mm from the same edge.

Comparative Example 1 A conventional product which is entirely made of transparent glass.

Comparative Example 2 A jig which is entirely made of translucent glass.

The fork of each of the above examples was heated to 1,050 ° C, furnace length 2000 mm,
The semiconductor wafer was loaded into a horizontal furnace for heat treatment of a semiconductor wafer having a soaking length of 1000 mm, and the temperature of the end of the transport jig after 30 minutes was measured.

 The measurement results in each example are shown in Table 1.

As described above, the first and second embodiments according to the present invention are
It can be seen that the temperature of the mounting edge portion is clearly lower than that of Comparative Examples 1 and 2 of the conventional product or the like. Further, in Comparative Example 2, when the boat loaded with the wafer is actually loaded,
It was found that the occurrence of warpage and slippage of the wafer was about three times as large as that in Examples 1 and 2.

〔The invention's effect〕

As explained above, in the quartz glass wafer boat transport jig of the present invention, the temperature rise in the vicinity of the end is suppressed, and the loss of heating energy is reduced. Therefore, it is possible to effectively prevent the deterioration of the organic material such as the polymer material used for the driving member and the holding member of the jig. Further, since the temperature distribution on the surface of the wafer does not have unevenness, it is possible to prevent the occurrence of warpage and slip, which is of high industrial value.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a usage state of an example of a jig of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an enlarged perspective view of a mounting end portion of the jig. FIG. 3 is a side view of a lifting jig according to the present invention,
FIG. 4 is a partially omitted perspective view of the upper holding jig. Also,
FIG. 5 is a schematic partial cross-sectional view showing a usage state of the transfer jig. Reference numerals in the figure: 1 ... Quartz glass wafer boat transport jig 2 ... Semi-transparent silica glass layer 3 ... Notch, 4 ... Semiconductor wafer 5 ... Boat, 6 ... Driving member 7 ... Connection fitting , 8 ... Heating body 9 ... Furnace core tube

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Kazuo Nakamura 1-22, Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Shinetsu Quartz Co., Ltd. Quartz Technology Laboratory Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A wafer boat transfer jig made of transparent quartz glass for transferring a semiconductor wafer boat into a horizontal furnace.
A quartz glass wafer boat carrying jig for a horizontal furnace, wherein a semi-transparent quartz glass layer containing fine bubbles is formed at an end of the jig that is attached to a driving unit for a feeding apparatus.