JPH09232239A - Surface treating apparatus for wafer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a surface treating apparatus for a wafer which can uniformly and homogeneously conduct the surface treatment of the wafer with high production efficiency. SOLUTION: Electrode plates 5 to 9 are rotated while injecting process gas from the pores 4a of a cylinder 4, and the wafers W supplied to the outer peripheral edges of the plates 5 to 9 are uniformly and homogeneously film- formed. The wafers W are supplied to the plates 5 to 9 by a conveying robot 23 in the state that the first gate valve 17 is opened, and the film formed wafer is discharged externally via a second gate valve 20, untreated wafer is supplied to a load locking chamber 3, and wafer W is similarly supplied to the plates 5 to 9 via the robot 23 to conduct the film forming action.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a wafer surface processing apparatus used for forming a thin film on the surface of a wafer by, for example, CVD.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, parallel plate type plasma CVD is widely known, but wafers of 1 to 8 slices (sheets) per batch are transferred through a load lock chamber and surface treatment is performed. Each time it was evacuated or cleaned, its production efficiency was low. Also known is a tube-type plasma CVD system in which wafers are arranged at equal intervals in the horizontal direction, but the diffusion length of the process gas is long, and the uniformity and homogeneity of the film formed on the surface of the wafer is high. It was inferior in terms of sex.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and provides a surface treatment apparatus for a wafer, which has high production efficiency and which has excellent uniformity and uniformity of a film formed on the wafer. The purpose is to

[0004]

The above-mentioned problems are solved by a plurality of electrode plates arranged in the process chamber at equal intervals in parallel with each other, and an RF for applying an RF voltage to the electrode plates. A plurality of wafers are supplied to the outer peripheral edge portion of the electrode plate body, and a process gas is supplied into the process chamber while rotating the electrode plate body to which an RF voltage is applied from the RF power source. And a surface treatment apparatus for a wafer, wherein the surface treatment of the wafer is performed by plasmaizing the space between the electrode plates by the RF voltage.

More specifically, the above-mentioned problems are solved by a cylindrical body having a large number of openings formed in its peripheral wall and a plurality of electrode plate bodies concentrically fixed to the cylindrical body in parallel with each other at equal intervals. Adjacent to the process chamber, a rotation motor for driving the electrode plate body to rotate around the cylindrical body, an RF power source for applying an RF voltage to the electrode plate body, A load lock chamber containing a cassette for accommodating a plurality of wafers and a transfer robot; a first gate valve arranged between the process chamber and the load lock chamber; and the load lock valve. And a second gate valve disposed between the cassette and the outside air, and the second gate valve is opened with the first gate valve closed to transfer an unprocessed wafer from the outside to the cassette. Supply, then the second gate valve is closed, the load lock chamber is evacuated, and the pressure in the process chamber is made to be almost the same, and then the first gate valve is opened to cause the transfer robot to move the cassette from the cassette. After supplying a plurality of wafers to the outer peripheral edge portion of the electrode plate body, the first gate valve is closed and the rotation motor is driven to rotate the electrode plate body to which an RF voltage is applied from the RF power source. Meanwhile, the process gas is ejected from a large number of openings of the cylindrical body, and the surface treatment of the wafer is performed by plasmaizing the space between the electrode plate bodies by the RF voltage. A surface treatment device.

[0006]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION A wafer surface treatment apparatus 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

In FIG. 1, electrode plate bodies 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 are fixed concentrically and parallel to each other with a cylindrical body 4 having a large number of openings 4a formed in its peripheral wall. In order to rotate these electrode plates 5 to 9 around the cylindrical body 4 together with them, a rotation motor 10 is provided below, so that the electrode plates 5 to 9 are rotated clockwise in FIG. Alternatively, the process chamber 2 which can be rotated counterclockwise has the above-mentioned cylindrical body 4 and electrode plate bodies 5 to 9 built therein, and the load / lock chamber 3 is provided adjacent to this, and the load / lock chamber 3 is the first gate valve 17 The second gate valve 20 can be vacuum-insulated from the outside air.
Although the gate valve 20 is opened and the first gate valve 17 is closed at this time, an unprocessed wafer W is supplied to the cassette 22 from the outside. After the second gate valve 20 is closed, the load / lock chamber 3 is evacuated to almost the same pressure as the inside of the process chamber 2.

The first gate valve 17 is opened, and the transfer robot 23 supplies the wafer W via the arm 25 to the outer peripheral edge of each of the electrode plates 5 to 9 as shown in the figure. The wafer supplied to the lower surface is held by some holding means (not shown). The same applies to the top surface. After the first gate valve 17 is closed, the electrode plates 5 to 9 are rotated by the rotation of the rotary motor 10 and exhausted until the inside of the process chamber 2 is stabilized. It is ejected from the small hole 4a as indicated by an arrow g. RF (Radio Fre
RF from the power supply 12 to each of the electrode plates 5 to 9
Since a voltage is applied, plasma is generated between the electrode plates 5-9, and since the electrode plates 5-9 are rotating, the thin film is uniformly and uniformly formed on the wafer W by the process gas. Be filmed. When the predetermined film formation is completed, the rotary motor 1
0, the first gate 17 is opened and the transfer robot 23 returns the film-formed wafer W to the cassette 22, the first gate valve 17 is closed, and then the second gate valve 20 is opened. The film-formed wafer W is discharged to the outside, and an unprocessed wafer is supplied to the cassette 7.

[0009]

EXAMPLES The above embodiments will be described in more detail below. That is, a CVD apparatus as a surface treatment apparatus is indicated by 1 as a whole, and a load lock chamber 3 is provided adjacent to a cylindrical process chamber 2. Inside the process chamber 2, there is provided a cylindrical body 4 having a large number of small holes 4a formed in the peripheral wall portion at the center thereof. The electrode plates 5, 6, 7, 8 are arranged at equal intervals and parallel to these.
And 9 are attached. A rotary shaft of a rotary motor 10 is fixed to the lower end of the cylindrical body 4, and an exhaust port 11 is provided in the bottom wall of the process chamber 2. The rotating disks 5 to 9 are the RF of the RF power source 12 shown in FIG.
The RF voltage of which polarity is inverted is alternately applied from the transmitter 10. To this end, insulating materials 15 and 16 are attached to the outer peripheral edge portions of the electrode plates 5 to 9, respectively, and as shown in FIG. Electrode rods 13a, 13b and 14a,
14b (also called a boat) is fixed. The lower end of the electrode rod 13a is grounded to the ground by a ground wire 19 and is slidable with respect to the ground. A first gate valve 17 is provided between the process chamber 2 and the load / lock chamber 3, and a transfer robot 23 is arranged in the process chamber 3 so as to be able to move up and down in a direction indicated by an arrow A. , Its arm 25 at each predetermined height
Thus, the wafer W is supplied into and taken out of the process chamber 2. A second gate valve 20 is provided between the load lock chamber 3 and the outside air.
Are provided, and four cassettes 22 are arranged on the cassette stand 21, and a plurality of wafers W can be accommodated in each.

The operation of the CVD apparatus of this embodiment will be described. The first gate valve 17 is closed, the second gate valve 20 is opened, and the wafer W is supplied to the cassette 22 from the outside. The second gate valve 20 is closed and the same pressure as that of the process chamber 2 is exhausted through an exhaust port 24 by an exhaust system (not shown). After evacuating to the same pressure as the process chamber 2, the first gate valve 17 is opened and the transfer robot 23 is moved up and down to a predetermined height, so that the arm 25 moves the wafer W from the cassette 22 to each electrode plate body 5.
The wafer W is supplied to the outer peripheral edge portions 9 to 9. The wafer W is supplied to both sides of the outer peripheral edge portions of the inner electrode plate bodies 6, 7, and 8. After supplying the wafer W to each of the electrode plates 5 to 9,
The gate valve 17 is closed. Next, the process gas is introduced into the cylindrical body 4 and ejected from the small hole 4a as shown by an arrow g, and the rotary motor 10 is driven to rotate the electrode plates 5 to 9 clockwise in FIG. 2 (of course). , It may be counterclockwise). The process gas from the cylindrical body 4 is diffused in the direction indicated by the arrow g and is discharged to the outside through the exhaust port 11. However, the process gas is ejected from each small hole 4a and each of the electrode plate bodies 5 to 9 is Since it is rotating, the diffusion length of the process gas is shortened, and the film formation is uniformly performed on each wafer W by the process gas. The RF power supply 12 is applied with an RF voltage whose polarity is alternately inverted by the wiring as shown in FIG. 3, which is made possible by the insulating materials 15 and 16. Plasma is generated between 9 and 9. When the predetermined film formation is completed, the first gate valve 17 is opened, each wafer W is taken out by the transfer robot 23, supplied to the cassette 22 (empty), the first gate valve 17 is closed, and the second gate is closed. The valve 20 is opened to supply the film-formed wafer in the cassette 22 to the outside. Hereinafter, the same operation as described above is repeated. With the configuration and operation as described above, uniform and uniform film formation can be performed with high production efficiency.

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described above, of course, the present invention is not limited to these, and various modifications can be made based on the technical idea of the present invention.

For example, although the CVD apparatus has been described in the above embodiments, it is also possible to use the apparatus as an etching apparatus for etching the film already formed on the wafer by changing the process gas. Although provided, it can also be used as a sputtering device. Further, in the above-mentioned embodiments, the wafer W is supported on both sides of the electrode plate body.
It is also possible to connect only one polarity of the F power source and apply it as a so-called parallel plate type CVD apparatus.

In the above embodiments, the case where the five electrode plate bodies 5 to 9 are used has been described. Of course, the more the number of the electrode plates, the more the processing capacity per batch can be increased.

Further, in the above embodiment, the wafer is accommodated in the cassette 22 from the outside, but of course, the cassette 21 accommodating the wafer may be carried in. In some cases, while the process is being performed in the process chamber 2, the second gate valve is opened while the first gate valve 17 is closed, for example, two of the four gate valves are used in the above embodiments. Alternatively, the unprocessed wafers may be accommodated in the cassette, and the two wafers may be alternately used to be supplied from the outside to continuously process the wafers.

[0015]

As described above, according to the wafer surface treatment apparatus of the present invention, the surface of the wafer can be treated almost continuously, and the production efficiency can be greatly increased as compared with the conventional case. In addition, since the process gas can be diffused in a short distance and can be uniformly supplied to each wafer, the surface treatment of the wafer can be performed uniformly and uniformly.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view of a CVD apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional plan view taken along line [2]-[2] in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a wiring diagram for applying an RF voltage of an RF power source applied to the device.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Wafer surface treatment apparatus, 2 ... Process chamber, 3 ... Load lock chamber, 4 ... Cylindrical body, 4a
...... Aperture, 5 ... Electrode plate, 6 ... Electrode plate, 7 ... Electrode plate, 8 ... Electrode plate, 9 ... Electrode plate, 12 ... R
F power source, 17th gate valve, 20th first gate valve.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of electrode plates arranged at equal intervals in parallel to each other in a process chamber, and R electrodes on the electrode plates.
An RF power source for applying an F voltage, and after supplying a plurality of wafers to the outer peripheral edge of the electrode plate body,
A process gas is introduced into the process chamber while rotating the electrode plate body to which an RF voltage is applied from an F power source, and plasma is generated between the electrode plate bodies by the RF voltage to perform the surface treatment of the wafer. A wafer surface treatment apparatus characterized by the above. 2. A process chamber having a cylindrical body having a large number of openings formed in a peripheral wall and a plurality of electrode plate bodies concentrically fixed to the cylindrical body in parallel with each other at equal intervals, A rotation motor for rotating the electrode plate body around the cylindrical body, an RF power source for applying an RF voltage to the electrode plate body, and a cassette adjacent to the process chamber and containing a plurality of wafers. And a load lock chamber containing a transfer robot, a first gate valve arranged between the process chamber and the load lock chamber, and a first lock valve arranged between the load lock valve and the outside air. A second gate valve for opening the second gate valve with the first gate valve closed to supply an unprocessed wafer from the outside to the cassette, and then the second gate valve. The valve is closed, the load / lock chamber is evacuated, and the pressure in the process chamber is made approximately the same, and then the first gate valve is opened to cause the transfer robot to move the wafer from the cassette to the outside of the electrode plate body. After supplying a plurality of sheets to the peripheral portion, the first gate valve is closed and the rotary motor is driven to rotate the electrode plate body to which an RF voltage is applied from the RF power source, and a large number of openings of the cylindrical body. A surface treatment apparatus for a wafer, characterized in that a process gas is ejected from the surface of the electrode plate and a plasma is generated between the electrode plate bodies by the RF voltage to perform the surface treatment of the wafer. 3. The wafer surface treatment apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the surface treatment is one of CVD, etching and sputtering. 4. The electrode plate body is alternately inverted in polarity by the RF power source to apply an RF voltage, and a wafer is supported on both surfaces of each electrode plate body. The wafer surface treatment apparatus described.