JPH11251413A - Vacuum treatment apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a vacuum treatment apparatus, capable of preventing deviation in position of a substrate in a vacuum chamber and a trouble during carriage. SOLUTION: In a vacuum treatment apparatus, a thin-plate substrate 4 is mounted on an electrode 3 as a mounting part in a vacuum chamber 6. The inside of the vacuum chamber 6 is put in a vacuum, and the substrate 4 is treated under low-pressure atmosphere. The electrode 3 has a plurality of air discharging grooves 3a arranged linearly and continuously in a substrate carrying direction on its upper face to discharge air between the lower face of the substrate 4 and the electrode 3. Then, the dislocation of the substrate 4 caused by a difference in pressure between the upper and lower faces of the substrate 4 during vacuum exhausting can be prevented. In addition, a plurality of carrying nails can be provided, so that the carrying nails do not come out of the edge of the substrate 4 during carriage, and the substrate 4 is carried steadily.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vacuum processing apparatus for vacuum processing a thin substrate.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Vacuum processing apparatuses such as a plasma processing apparatus are known as apparatuses for performing surface treatment of a substrate. This vacuum processing apparatus is for processing a substrate as an object under a reduced-pressure atmosphere. At the time of processing, a substrate is placed in a vacuum chamber and the inside of the vacuum chamber is evacuated.

[0003]

Incidentally, in recent years, thin plate-shaped substrates such as resin tape substrates have been widely used. Since the thin plate-shaped substrate is easy to bend and lightweight, there are various difficulties in handling. One of them is displacement in a vacuum chamber during vacuum processing.

After the substrate is loaded on the substrate mounting portion in the vacuum chamber, the vacuum chamber is evacuated. At this time, the entire vacuum chamber is not always evacuated uniformly. The air in the space above the substrate that is easily exhausted without obstacles is exhausted first. Air is likely to remain in the gap between the substrate and the surface of the substrate mounting portion, and particularly when the substrate is thin and easily bent, the frequency of occurrence of the air residue is high.
As a result, a pressure difference is generated between the upper surface and the lower surface of the substrate, so that buoyancy acts on the substrate, which causes a problem that a displacement of the substrate occurs.

[0005] Further, the substrate is generally conveyed by pushing the rear end portion of the substrate on a conveyance path by a conveyance claw. In the case of a thin plate-shaped substrate, the conveyance claw is easily detached from the substrate, so that the substrate is loaded and unloaded into a vacuum chamber. There was a problem that a trouble occurred during unloading.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a vacuum processing apparatus capable of preventing a displacement of a substrate in a vacuum chamber and a trouble at the time of transfer.

[0007]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vacuum processing apparatus, comprising: a substrate mounting portion disposed in a vacuum chamber for mounting a thin substrate; and an exhaust means for evacuating the vacuum chamber. And an air vent groove for venting air in a gap between the lower surface of the mounted substrate and the upper surface is provided on the upper surface of the substrate mounting portion.

[0008] The vacuum processing apparatus according to the second aspect is the first aspect.
In the vacuum processing apparatus described above, the air vent groove is a plurality of grooves that are linearly and continuously arranged in the substrate transfer direction of the substrate mounting unit.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, an air vent groove for bleeding air between the lower surface of the substrate and the upper surface is provided on the upper surface of the substrate mounting portion, thereby preventing displacement of the substrate during vacuum evacuation. be able to.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, by providing a plurality of the air vent grooves and arranging them linearly and continuously in the substrate transport direction, the substrate can be transported stably without the transport claws coming off the substrate. Can be.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a vacuum chamber of a vacuum processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a plan view of the vacuum chamber of the vacuum processing apparatus.

First, the structure of a vacuum processing apparatus will be described with reference to FIGS. In FIG. 2, an opening 1 a is provided in the base member 1, and an electrode 3 is attached to the opening 1 a from below through an insulating member 2. A cover member 5 is disposed above the electrode 3 so as to be able to move up and down. When the lid member 5 is lowered and the lower end of the lid member 5 is in contact with the base member 1, a space surrounded by the lid member 5, the base member 1 and the electrode 3 constitutes a vacuum chamber 6. Substrate 4 on electrode 3
Is placed. Therefore, the electrode 3 is a substrate mounting portion. A seal member 7 that seals the vacuum chamber 6 is mounted on a surface of the base member that is in contact with the lid member 5.

The base member 1 is provided with a tube section 8, and the vacuum chamber 6 is connected to a vacuum exhaust section 9 as an exhaust means and a plasma gas supply section 10 via the tube section 8. The vacuum exhaust unit 8 exhausts the air in the vacuum chamber 6. The plasma gas supply unit 10 supplies a plasma generating gas such as an argon gas into the vacuum chamber 6. The electrode 3 is electrically connected to a high-frequency power supply 11,
By driving the high frequency power supply 11, a high frequency voltage is applied to the electrode 3.

Next, the structure of the upper surface of the electrode 3 will be described. As shown in FIG. 1 and FIG.
A plurality of grooves 3a arranged linearly and continuously in the direction in which is transported (the left-right direction in FIG. 2) are provided. The function of the groove 3a will be described later. On the upper surface of the electrode 3, two elongated guide members 12 are mounted in the transport direction. The guide members 12 are arranged at intervals corresponding to the width dimension B of the substrate 4, and are fixed by bolts 13 in bolt holes 14 provided on the upper surface of the convex portion 3 b that extends the groove 3 a. As shown in the cross section of FIG.
The guide member 12 does not protrude from the upper surface of the guide member 12.

On the upstream side (left side in FIG. 2) and downstream side of the base member 1, a pair of transport rails 15 and 16 are provided. The rear end of the substrate 4 is pushed by the transfer arm 17 on the transfer rail 15 from the upstream side and is loaded onto the electrode 3.
6 is carried out. A plurality of (three in FIG. 2) transfer claws 17a are provided at the distal end of the transfer arm 17. The transfer width of the transfer rails 15 and 16 is also variable according to the width B of the substrate 4.

This vacuum processing apparatus has the above-described configuration, and its operation will be described next. First, in FIG. 1, the substrate 4 is carried into the vacuum chamber 6 by the transfer arm 17 with the vacuum chamber 6 opened, that is, with the lid member 5 raised. Next, the lid member 5 is lowered and the vacuum chamber 6
Is closed, the vacuum exhaust unit 9 is driven to operate the vacuum chamber 6.
The air inside is exhausted.

At this time, as shown in FIG. 1, even if air is left in the gap between the lower surface of the substrate 4 and the upper surface of the electrode 3, the substrate 4 is placed over the entire length of the substrate 4. The gap 3a allows the air in the gap to be quickly evacuated, so that there is no pressure difference between the upper surface and the lower surface of the substrate 4. Therefore, when the substrate 4 is evacuated due to the pressure difference, which occurs when the upper surface of the electrode 3 is flat.
Does not occur. That is, the groove 3a functions as an air bleeding groove for bleeding air in a gap between the lower surface of the substrate 4 and the upper surface of the electrode 3 serving as the substrate mounting portion.

Thereafter, a plasma generation gas such as argon gas is supplied into the vacuum chamber 6 by the plasma gas supply unit 10. Next, the high frequency power supply 11 is driven to drive the electrode 3
By applying a high frequency voltage to the vacuum chamber 6, plasma is generated in the vacuum chamber 6. The ions and electrons generated as a result collide with the surface of the substrate 4, so that the surface of the substrate 4 is subjected to plasma processing. At this time, the guide member 12
Since the bolts 13 for fixing do not protrude from the upper surface of the guide member 12 and have no irregularities around the substrate 4, the plasma discharge is made more uniform as compared with the state where the bolts and the like protrude, Therefore, uniform plasma processing is performed.

When the plasma processing is completed, the atmosphere is introduced into the vacuum chamber 6. At this time, since the substrate 4 is guided by the guide member 12, the substrate 4 does not shift due to the flow of the introduced air. Thereafter, the lid member 5 is lifted, and the substrate 4 is carried out onto the transport rail 16. At this time, since the transfer arm 17 is provided with the plurality of transfer claws 17a, the rear end of the substrate 4 can be pushed in a stable manner, and the transfer error of the substrate 4 can be reduced.

[0020]

According to the present invention, the lower surface of the substrate and the air vent groove for releasing air from the upper surface are provided on the upper surface of the substrate mounting portion. Even if it remains, no pressure difference occurs between the upper and lower surfaces of the substrate during evacuation. Therefore, displacement of the substrate due to the pressure difference can be prevented. In addition, by making the air vent groove a plurality of continuous linear grooves,
Since the rear end portion of the substrate can be stably pushed by the plurality of transport claws, transport errors can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a vacuum chamber of a vacuum processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of a vacuum chamber of the vacuum processing apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Base member 3 Electrode 3a Groove 4 Substrate 5 Cover member 6 Vacuum chamber 9 Vacuum exhaust part 10 Plasma gas supply part 11 High frequency power supply 12 Guide member

Claims (2)

[Claims] A substrate mounting portion disposed inside the vacuum chamber for mounting a thin plate-shaped substrate; and an exhaust unit for evacuating the vacuum chamber, wherein an upper surface of the substrate mounting portion is provided.
A vacuum processing apparatus comprising: an air vent groove for venting air in a gap between a lower surface of a mounted substrate and the upper surface. 2. The vacuum processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said air vent groove is a plurality of grooves arranged linearly and continuously in a substrate transport direction of said substrate mounting portion.