JPH0936195A - Substrate treatment device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a substrate treatment device which is capable of orientating the characteristic parts of substrates in a certain direction so as to make the substrates have the same histories. SOLUTION: An orientation flat aligner (first positioning mechanism) 12 is provided to an indexer ID which serves as a substrate load/unload section, semiconductor wafers 1 are positioned so as to make their orientation flats face in a certain direction and then delivered to treatment sections 110 and 120. A second positioning mechanism is provided to a semiconductor wafer rotary treatment section (spin coater SC and spin developer SD1 and SD2) to position the semiconductor wafers 1 so as to make their orientation flats face in a certain direction when the wafers 1 is stopped rotating. Therefore, the semiconductor wafers 1 are transferred to all treatment sections making their orientation flats face in a certain direction always, so that all the wafers have the same histories such as heat history, spin processing history, and the like.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus for performing a series of processing on various types of substrates such as semiconductor wafers and glass substrates for liquid crystal display devices.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As is well known, various surface treatments such as a resist spin coating treatment and related treatments are performed on a semiconductor wafer, and a semiconductor wafer treating apparatus for automatically performing the series of treatments is used. Has been done. In order to efficiently perform the series of processes, a plurality of processing units are arranged in two rows to form a processing unit group, and one semiconductor wafer, which is a substrate to be processed, is processed from the cassette side by processing unit group side. Then, the semiconductor wafer is transferred to each processing section by a transfer robot (transfer means).

The plurality of processing units that make up the processing unit group include a heat treatment unit that performs a heating process and a cooling process on the semiconductor wafer. In this heat treatment section, the semiconductor wafer is placed on the upper surface of the plate directly or at predetermined intervals to perform heat treatment. Here, it is difficult to make the heat distribution on the plate completely uniform due to factors such as individual differences in heaters and the plate installation environment. Therefore, the semiconductor wafer heat-treated by this heat treatment unit has a heat distribution of the heat treatment unit. The specific thermal history according to is reflected. Therefore, when mounting the semiconductor wafer on the heat treatment section, it is desired that the orientation history, which is a characteristic portion of the semiconductor wafer, be arranged so as to face a certain direction so that the semiconductor wafers have the same thermal history. .

Further, the processing unit group includes a rotation processing unit such as a spin coater (rotary resist coating apparatus) for rotating a semiconductor wafer to spin-coat a resist, and a spin processing history between each semiconductor wafer. There is a desire to make the same. This "spin processing history" is greatly affected by wind cutting in the initial stage of rotation, so that the orientation flat of the semiconductor wafer is positioned so as to face a certain direction prior to the rotation, and rotation is started from that state so that the gap between the semiconductor wafers is increased. The spin processing history can be made the same with.

Furthermore, when carrying a semiconductor wafer,
There is a demand to suppress the vibration of semiconductor wafers, and in order to satisfy this, it is necessary to convey the orientation flats of the semiconductor wafers in a posture in which they are oriented in a certain direction so that the conveyance history is the same among the semiconductor wafers. Is.

[0006]

By the way, a semiconductor wafer is accommodated in a cassette with orientation flats (characteristic portions) oriented in various directions. Moreover, in the past, no consideration has been given to adjusting the orientation flat of the semiconductor wafer so that the orientation flat of the semiconductor wafer faces a certain direction when the semiconductor wafer is unloaded from the cassette and is unloaded to the processing section group. Therefore, there is a problem that the above-mentioned various histories cannot be made the same between the semiconductor wafers, processing variations occur between the semiconductor wafers, and stable substrate processing cannot be performed.

Incidentally, such a problem is not limited to the semiconductor wafer, but is a general problem of the substrate processing apparatus for processing a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display device having a characteristic portion such as a cutout. Further, the spin processing history becomes a problem not only in the spin coater but also in the rotary developing device (spin developer).

The present invention solves the above problems,
An object of the present invention is to provide a substrate processing apparatus in which characteristic history of a substrate is adjusted so as to face a certain direction so that various histories can be made the same.

[0009]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, a processing unit group including a plurality of processing units each performing a predetermined processing on a substrate, and a plurality of substrates are sequentially directed toward the processing unit group. A substrate processing apparatus comprising: a substrate loading / unloading unit for unloading, and a transporting unit for transporting a substrate unloaded from the substrate loading / unloading unit between the plurality of processing units, in order to achieve the above object, The substrate loading / unloading unit includes a first positioning mechanism that detects a characteristic portion of each substrate and positions the characteristic portion so that the characteristic portion faces a certain direction. In this substrate loading / unloading unit, after the substrate is positioned by the first positioning mechanism, it is unloaded toward the processing unit group.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the processing section includes a rotation processing section for rotating and processing the substrate, and when the rotation processing section stops the rotation, the characteristic portion of the rotation processing section faces a certain direction. Thus, the second positioning mechanism for positioning the substrate is provided. Therefore, when the substrate is carried out from the rotation processing unit, the substrate is positioned so that its characteristic portion faces a certain direction.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, a heat treatment unit that heat-treats the substrate as a treatment unit. Since the substrates are given to the heat treatment section and subjected to heat treatment in a state where the characteristic portions face a certain direction, the heat history becomes the same between the substrates.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the conveying means is provided with a holding portion having a rotationally symmetrical shape. The transport means,
The substrate is conveyed between the plurality of processing units while holding the substrate so that the center of gravity of the substrate is located on the axis of rotational symmetry of the holding unit. Therefore, the vibration of the substrate during transportation is suppressed.

[0013]

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of a semiconductor wafer processing apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention, in which XYZ rectangular coordinate axes are shown in order to clarify the directional relationship with each drawing described later. Has been done. In addition, FIG.
FIG. 3 is a conceptual plan layout diagram of In this apparatus 100, the transport means for transporting the semiconductor wafer 1 between the plurality of processing units is composed of two transport robots TH and TC.

In this apparatus 100, a plurality of semiconductor wafers 1 are sequentially processed into a processing unit group 11 which will be described later.
An indexer ID that functions as a substrate loading / unloading unit that carries out toward 0 and 120 is provided. This indexer ID is used for the robot 101 and the cassette mounting portion 11 for mounting the cassette 10 in which the semiconductor wafer 1 is stored.
And an orientation flat matching section (first positioning mechanism) 12. This robot 101 has an indexer ID
The semiconductor wafer 1 can be transported between the upper cassette 10, the orientation flat aligning unit 12 and the transport robot TH. First, the semiconductor wafer 1 is taken out from the cassette and transported to the orientation flat aligning unit 12.

The orientation flat aligning section 12 is, as shown in FIG. 3, a chuck section 13 for sucking and holding the semiconductor wafer 1.
And five centering arms 14 which are radially arranged around the chuck portion 13 and can contract and expand, and a sensor 15 which is arranged above the edge of the semiconductor wafer 1 supported by the chuck portion 13. It is composed of.
In this orientation flat aligning unit 12, when the semiconductor wafer 1 is placed on the chuck unit 13 by the robot 101, the centering arm 14 contracts and the semiconductor wafer 1 is centered. Subsequently, the semiconductor wafer 1 is sucked and held by the chuck portion 13 and integrally rotated with the chuck portion 13 to detect the orientation flat 1a which is a characteristic portion of the semiconductor wafer 1 by the sensor 15, and then the orientation flat 1a is detected.
When it is oriented in a predetermined direction, the rotation of the chuck portion 13 is stopped and the semiconductor wafer 1 is positioned.

The semiconductor wafer 1 thus positioned
Are transferred to the transfer robot TH by the robot 101 and carried out to the processing unit group 110 side.

The first and second processing unit groups 110 and 120 are arranged in two rows substantially parallel to each other, and the semiconductor wafer 1 is connected to an external device, for example, a stepper on the side opposite to the indexer ID during the cyclic transfer. An interface IFB is provided as a substrate mounting table for temporarily mounting for delivery.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual front view of the first processing unit group 110. The first processing unit group 110 has a stacked structure in which a plurality of processing units are arranged in multiple stages and multiple rows, and includes a stacked arrangement of hot plates (baking units) HP1 to HP4, edge exposure units EEW1 and EEW2, and the like. Hot plate H
P1 to HP4 are heat treatment units for baking the semiconductor wafer 1 at high temperature, and the edge exposure units EEW1 and EEW2 are for exposing the edges of the semiconductor wafer 1 after the resist is applied.

A transfer unit row 140 is provided at the lowermost portion of the first processing unit group 110. The transfer unit row 140 includes three sets of transfer units 141, 142, 1
The transfer unit 141 is composed of a set of 43, of which the interface unit IF1 is laminated on the cool plate (cooling unit) CP1. Similarly, the other transfer unit 142 (143) also has the cool plate CP2 (CP).
The interface section IF2 (IF3) is laminated on the 3).

Among the elements constituting the transfer parts 141 to 143, the cool plates CP1 to CP3 contain the semiconductor wafer 1 after being heated by the hot plates HP1 to HP3, in which constant temperature water at a predetermined temperature near room temperature is placed inside. It has a function of being placed on a plate to be supplied and forcibly cooled, and is a temporary placement for transferring the semiconductor wafer 1 between the first processing unit group 110 side and the second processing unit group 120 side. Also used as a storage place. In this delivery, the cool plates CP1 to CP3 are the transfer robots TH and T.
This is a processing unit commonly accessed from any of Cs.
Further, in the cool plates CP1 to CP3, the processing at which the processing result is extremely affected even by a minute temperature change such as coating and development using a chemical solution is not performed, so the temperature at the start of the processing is slightly changed. However, there is no substantial effect on the treatment.

On the other hand, the interface units IF1 to IF1
The IF 3 is a wafer mounting place used only for delivery of the semiconductor wafer 1, has three pins for mounting the wafer, and is provided as a "delivery-only section".

A cool plate CP4 for forcibly cooling the semiconductor wafer 1 after being heated by the hot plate HP4 is provided above the end of the first processing unit group 110, and the cool plate CP4 is a semiconductor. It is not used for delivery of the wafer 1. In addition, in FIG.
"---" indicates an empty part.

As shown in FIG. 2, the second processing unit group 120 includes a spin coater (rotary resist coating device) SC and spin developers (rotary developing devices) SD1 and SD.
Two.

FIG. 5 shows V- shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 4.
It is sectional drawing seen along the V line. However, as both the transfer robots TH and TC appear in FIG. 5, the positions of the transfer robots TH and TC are drawn at positions deviated from those of FIGS. 1, 2 and 4 within their translatable range. ing. As shown in FIG. 5, the apparatus 100 is provided with two transfer robots TC and TH, and these transfer robots TC and TH carry out the cyclic transfer and the transfer of the semiconductor wafer 1. That is, in this embodiment, the semiconductor wafer 1 as the substrate to be processed is transferred to the first and second processing unit groups 11 and 11 by the transfer robots TC and TH.
A transporting unit that sequentially transports the processing units 0 and 120 is configured. The former of the transfer robots TC and TH is the semiconductor wafer 1 to the second processing unit group 120.
Is a "low temperature robot" provided for carrying the semiconductor wafer 1, and the latter is a "high temperature robot" provided for carrying the semiconductor wafer 1 to the first processing unit group 110.
Each is configured as follows.

The low temperature robot TC is capable of translating between the first and second processing unit groups 110 and 120 in the X direction and the opposite direction, and has a simultaneous interchangeable type hand. In this simultaneous exchange type hand, two telescopic articulated arms (hereinafter, simply referred to as arms) are provided at slightly different heights at the center of the low temperature robot TC, and the first holding portions 133 are respectively provided at both ends thereof. And the 2nd holding part 134 is attached and comprised. These arms can be used by the low temperature robot T for movements in the horizontal plane.
Both are simultaneously driven by a motor M, which is a single common drive source provided in C, so as to extend or retract simultaneously. Then, the semiconductor wafers are transferred between the processing units facing each other by moving up and down. The first holding portion 133 and the second holding portion 134 are shown in FIG.
As shown in, it has a shape in which a part of an arc is cut out,
The edge of the semiconductor wafer 1 is supported by three claws FP which are symmetrical with respect to the rotational symmetry axis SA and project toward the center of the arc. The low temperature robot TC configured as described above includes a spin coater SC and a spin developer SD.
1, SD2, the semiconductor wafer on the cool plate CP is transferred to the spin coater SC, and at the same time, the semiconductor wafer on the spin coater SC is transferred to the interface unit IF1.
Perform the operation of transporting to. Note that the configuration of the low temperature robot TC is not limited to this, and as in the high temperature robot TH described later, two hands are vertically stacked,
A so-called double hand type may be used.

The high temperature robot TH includes a first processing unit group 11
The rear surface side (Y direction side) of 0 can be translated in the X direction and the opposite direction. That is, the high temperature robot TH can be translated on the transport path 130H (FIG. 2) which is in contact with the back surface of the apparatus body FR. The high temperature robot TH can move up and down (vertical bidirectional arrow in FIG. 4). Furthermore, the hands 13 that can move back and forth independently of each other
1, 132 access each processing unit and the transfer unit 142 through the wafer loading / unloading port 115 (145) to perform a semiconductor wafer removal / placement operation. For example, the first hand 131 of the high temperature robot TH holds a first semiconductor wafer, and the first semiconductor wafer is held by the hot plate H.
This hot plate HP has already been placed on P2.
Consider a case where the second semiconductor wafer, which has been processed in step 2, is taken out from the hot plate HP2 (semiconductor wafer “replacement”). In this case, the high temperature robot TH moves to the front of the wafer loading / unloading port 115 of the hot plate HP2 and moves the empty second hand 132 to the hot plate HP.
2 and hold and take out the second semiconductor wafer. After that, the first hand 131 is placed on the hot plate HP.
2, and the first semiconductor wafer held by the same is placed on the hot plate HP2. This achieves an "exchange" of the first and second semiconductor wafers. When only “removal” or “placement” is performed instead of such exchange, only one of these operations is required.

Returning to FIG. 5, the description will be continued. As shown in the figure, a slit plate 121 for detecting the shaft position is attached to the lower part of the motor shaft of the spin coater SC, and a photo interrupter 122 is arranged at the edge of the slit plate 121, so that spin coating of resist is performed. When the processing is completed and the semiconductor wafer 1 is stopped rotating, the orientation flat 1a, which is a characteristic portion of the semiconductor wafer 1, moves in a fixed direction while detecting the slit portion (not shown) provided in the slit plate 121 by the photo interrupter 122. The semiconductor wafer 1 is rotationally positioned so as to face. Thus, in this embodiment, the slit plate 121 and the photo interrupter 122 constitute the second positioning mechanism for positioning the semiconductor wafer 1. Although not shown in the drawings, the spin developers SD1 and SD2 also have a second positioning mechanism formed similarly to the spin coater SC. Further, the configuration of the second positioning mechanism is not limited to this configuration. For example, similarly to the first positioning mechanism, the orientation flat 1a of the semiconductor wafer 1 is directly detected so that the orientation flat 1a faces a predetermined direction. Alternatively, the semiconductor wafer 1 may be positioned.

In FIG. 2 and FIG. 2, reference numeral 15
0 is the semiconductor wafer processing apparatus 10 configured as above.
0 is a force-combining portion for competing for the power between 0 and the outside of the apparatus, and is provided in the space SP1 immediately below the transport path 130H.

Next, the characteristic operation of the semiconductor wafer processing apparatus 100 configured as described above will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 7, the semiconductor wafer 1 is taken out from the cassette 10 and baked by a hot plate HP,
FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically showing a procedure of sequentially performing a cooling process by a cool plate CP and a spin coating process of a resist by a spin coater SC, in which a dotted arrow indicates a transfer of a semiconductor wafer 1 by a robot 101 having an indexer ID. The solid arrows indicate the transfer of the semiconductor wafer 1 by the transfer means (high-temperature and low-temperature robots TH, TC).

First, in this apparatus 100, the robot 10
1 picks up the semiconductor wafer 1 from the cassette 10 and conveys it to the orientation flat aligning section 12 (dotted line arrow AR1). Then, the orientation flat aligning portion 12 positions the orientation flat 1a, which is a characteristic portion of the semiconductor wafer 1, in a certain direction as described above. Following that, robot 1
The semiconductor wafer 1 in which 01 is positioned is taken out from the orientation flat aligning section 12 (dotted arrow AR2), and the processing section group 11
It is delivered to the transport means (high temperature robot TH) on the 0, 120 side (circled position in the figure). Thus, in this embodiment, the semiconductor wafer 1 housed in the cassette 10 is directly
After the semiconductor wafer 1 is positioned so that the orientation flat 1a always faces a certain direction by the orientation flat aligning portion 12, the processing wafers 11 and 120 are not transported to the processing portion groups 110 and 120.
Since the wafer is transported to the 0, 120 side, the orientation flat 1a is irrespective of the accommodation state of the semiconductor wafer 1 in the cassette 10.
The semiconductor wafer 1 is transported in a posture in which the semiconductor wafer 1 faces a certain direction.

The transfer means (high temperature robot TH) which has received the semiconductor wafer 1 transfers the semiconductor wafer 1 to the hot plate HP (solid arrow AR3) and places it directly or at a predetermined interval on the upper surface of the plate. Perform bake processing. Therefore, on the hot plate HP, the orientation flat 1
The baking process is performed on the semiconductor wafer 1 in a state where a is oriented in a certain direction.

When the baking process on the hot plate HP is completed, the transfer means (high temperature robot TH) takes out the semiconductor wafer 1 from the hot plate HP (solid arrow AR).
4), carry it to the cool plate CP (solid arrow AR5),
The plate is placed directly on the upper surface of the plate or at a predetermined interval to perform cooling processing. Therefore, similar to the baking process on the hot plate HP, the cooling process is performed on the semiconductor wafer 1 with the orientation flat 1a oriented in a fixed direction.

When the cooling process on the cool plate CP is completed, the transfer means (low temperature robot TC) takes out the semiconductor wafer 1 from the cool plate CP (solid arrow AR).
6), it is conveyed to the spin coater SC (solid arrow AR7).
The orientation flat 1a of the semiconductor wafer 1 thus conveyed to the spin coater SC always faces a fixed direction, and rotation starts from this state, and the resist is spin-coated on the semiconductor wafer 1. Therefore, the spin processing history can be made the same between the semiconductor wafers 1.

When the resist coating process by the spin coater SC is completed, the slit portion (not shown) of the slit plate 121 is detected by the photo interrupter 122,
The semiconductor wafer 1 is rotationally positioned so that the orientation flat 1a of the semiconductor wafer 1 faces a certain direction. Subsequently, the transfer means (low temperature robot TC) takes out the semiconductor wafer 1 from the spin coater SC (solid arrow AR8) and transfers it to the next processing section.

Incidentally, among the subsequent processing units, in the processing unit which processes the semiconductor wafer 1 without rotating it like the hot plate HP and the cool plate CP, the processing is carried out by the transfer means (high temperature or low temperature robots TH, TC). It is carried into the unit, and when the processing is completed, it is carried out from the processing unit. On the other hand, spin developers SD1 and SD for rotating and processing the semiconductor wafer 1 like the spin coater SC.
In 2, the transfer means (high or low temperature robot TH, T
By C), it is loaded into the processing unit and processed for rotation,
When the rotation developing process is completed, the semiconductor wafer 1 is rotationally positioned by the second positioning mechanism so that the orientation flat 1a of the semiconductor wafer 1 faces a certain direction, and then the semiconductor wafer 1 is unloaded from the processing section by the transfer means (low temperature robot TC). Then, when a series of processes is completed, the transfer means (high temperature robot TH) transfers the semiconductor wafer 1 to the indexer ID side and transfers it to the robot 101. After that, the robot 101 returns the semiconductor wafer 1 into the cassette 10. The device 100 repeats such a series of processes.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the orientation flat aligning portion (first positioning mechanism) 12 is provided on the indexer ID which is the substrate loading / unloading portion, and the orientation flat aligning portion 12 causes the orientation flat 1a to face a certain direction. After the semiconductor wafer 1 is positioned on the processing unit group 110, 120, the semiconductor wafer 1 is unloaded to the processing unit groups 110 and 120 and the semiconductor wafer 1 is rotated (spin coater SC and spin developer SD).
1, SD2) is provided with a second positioning mechanism for rotationally positioning the semiconductor wafer 1 so that the orientation flat 1a faces a certain direction when the rotation of the semiconductor wafer 1 is stopped. Whether the heat treatment is performed in the heat treatment unit (hot plate HP and cool plate CP) before or after, the semiconductor wafer 1 is
Since the orientation flat 1a is always conveyed to the hot plate HP or the cool plate CP in a state where it is oriented in a certain direction and processed, the thermal history between the semiconductor wafers 1 becomes the same before and after the processing in the rotation processing unit. .

In the spin coater SC, the coating liquid is applied to the semiconductor wafer 1 to form a coating film, and then the coating film on the peripheral portion of the semiconductor wafer 1 is dissolved and removed with a solvent. However, in such dissolution and removal of the dissolution coating film, since the solvent is supplied while rotating the semiconductor wafer aiming at the peripheral portion of the semiconductor wafer 1, the portion of the orientation flat 1a located on the center side from the circumference is The coating film may remain as it is without being dissolved and removed well. Then, a series of processes are performed with the coating film left on the orientation flat 1a, and when the semiconductor wafer 1 is finally returned into the indexer ID cassette 10, the orientation flat 1a is placed on the substrate supporting portion in the cassette 10. If they come into contact with each other and are supported, particles will be generated due to the contact. However, according to this embodiment, since the second positioning mechanism for rotationally positioning the semiconductor wafer 1 is provided in the rotation processing section including the spin coater SC, when the semiconductor wafer 1 is returned into the cassette 10, the second positioning mechanism is provided. ,
The orientation flat 1a can be preliminarily positioned so as to face a certain direction so that the portion of the orientation flat 1a does not come into contact with the substrate supporting portion in the cassette 10, and the above-described generation of particles can be prevented.

Also, in the spin coater SC and the spin developers SD1 and SD2, since the spin coater SC and the spin developers SD1 and SD2 are set in the processing unit while maintaining the above-mentioned state and the rotation is started from this state, the wind cutting between the semiconductor wafers 1 at the initial stage of rotation. Are the same, and the spin processing history is the same among the semiconductor wafers 1.

Further, in the above state, the transfer robot T
Since they are transported by H and TC, the transport history can be the same. In particular, as shown in FIG.
When the gravity center GP of the semiconductor wafer 1 is positioned on the rotational symmetry axis SA of 3,134 and the semiconductor wafer 1 is transferred by the transfer robot TC, the vibration of the semiconductor wafer 1 generated during the transfer can be suppressed. This applies not only to the low temperature robot TC side but also to the high temperature robot TH.

In the above embodiment, the transfer means is constituted by the two transfer robots TH and TC, and the semiconductor wafer 1 is circulated and transferred by these transfer robots TH and TC. The present invention can also be applied to an apparatus in which a transfer means is composed of a robot or three or more transfer robots.

The substrate to be processed is not limited to a semiconductor wafer, and various substrates for precision electronic equipment such as substrates for liquid crystal display devices can be targeted. The configuration of the processing unit can be appropriately changed according to the contents required for processing the substrate to be processed.

Further, in the above embodiment, the rotation processing unit (spin coater SC) for rotating the semiconductor wafer 1 for processing.
Also, the present invention can be applied to a substrate processing apparatus which is provided with spin developers SD1 and SD2) but does not have a rotation processing unit. However, in this case, the spin processing history does not matter.

When the orientation supporting portion 1a is supported by the substrate supporting portion in the cassette 10, the front portion of the semiconductor wafer 1 tilts downward, which generally prevents the robot 101 from entering the cassette. In the present invention, when the semiconductor wafer 1 is returned into the cassette 10 by the first positioning mechanism when the rotation processing unit is not provided and by the second positioning mechanism when the rotation processing unit is provided, the cassette 10 is returned. Such an inconvenience can be eliminated by preliminarily positioning the orientation flat 1a so that the orientation flat 1a faces a certain direction so that the portion of the orientation flat 1a is not supported by the substrate supporting portion.

[0044]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the substrate loading / unloading section is provided with the first positioning mechanism for detecting the characteristic portion of each substrate and positioning so that the characteristic portion faces a certain direction. After the substrate is positioned by the first positioning mechanism, the substrate is carried out toward the processing unit group, so that the histories can be made the same.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, when the rotation of the substrate is stopped by the rotation processing unit that rotates and processes the substrate,
A second positioning mechanism is provided to position the substrate so that the characteristic portion of the substrate faces a certain direction, and when the substrate is carried out from the rotation processing unit, the substrate is positioned so that the characteristic portion faces a certain direction. Even if the processing unit is provided, the various histories can be the same.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, when the heat treatment section that heat-treats the substrate is provided as the treatment section, the substrate is applied to the heat treatment section and heat-treated while the characteristic portions are oriented in a fixed direction. , The thermal history of each substrate can be the same.

According to the invention of claim 4, the carrying means is provided with a holding portion having a rotationally symmetrical shape, and the processing is performed while holding the substrate so that the center of gravity of the substrate is located on the rotationally symmetrical axis of the holding portion. Since the transfer is performed between the parts, it is possible to suppress the vibration of the substrate during the transfer.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of a semiconductor wafer processing apparatus (substrate processing apparatus) according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of the apparatus of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged plan view of an orientation flat matching section.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual front layout view of a first processing unit group.

5 is a cross-sectional view taken along line VV shown in FIGS. 1, 2, and 4. FIG.

FIG. 6 is an enlarged plan view of a holding portion.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing the operation of the apparatus of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Semiconductor Wafer (Substrate) 12 Orientation Flat Alignment Unit (First Positioning Mechanism) 100 Semiconductor Wafer Processing Device (Substrate Processing Device) 110, 120 Processing Unit Group 121 Slit Plate 122 Photo Interrupters CP1 to CP4 Cool Plate (Processing Unit) EEW1, EEW2 Edge exposure unit (processing unit) HP1 to HP4 hot plate (processing unit) ID indexer (substrate loading / unloading unit) IF1 to IF3 interface unit (processing unit) SC spin coater (rotation processing unit) SD1, SD2 spin developer (rotation processing unit) ) TH High temperature robot (transportation means) TC Low temperature robot (transportation means)

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Internal reference number FI Technical indication H01L 21/31 H01L 21/30 564C

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A processing section group including a plurality of processing sections, each of which performs a predetermined processing on a substrate, a substrate loading / unloading section for sequentially loading a plurality of substrates toward the processing section group, and the substrate loading. In a substrate processing apparatus comprising a transfer unit configured to transfer a substrate carried out from a carry-out unit between the plurality of processing units, the substrate carry-in / carry-out unit detects a characteristic part of each substrate and the characteristic part is A substrate processing apparatus comprising a first positioning mechanism for positioning so as to face a certain direction, and after carrying out positioning of the substrate by the first positioning mechanism, it is carried out toward the processing section group. 2. One of the plurality of processing units is a rotation processing unit that rotates and processes a substrate, and the rotation processing unit includes:
The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a second positioning mechanism that positions the substrate so that its characteristic portion faces a certain direction when the rotation of the substrate is stopped. 3. The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein one of the plurality of processing units is a heat treatment unit that heats a substrate. 4. The transfer means is provided with a holding portion having a rotationally symmetrical shape, and between the plurality of processing portions while holding the substrate such that the center of gravity of the substrate is located on the rotational symmetry axis of the holding portion. The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the substrate processing apparatus is transported by.