KR19990039446U - Wafer chuck debris removal device for semiconductor wafer exposure equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a wafer chuck foreign material removal device of a semiconductor wafer exposure apparatus, and the prior art has been performed by visually checking whether there is a foreign material on the upper surface of the wafer chuck or by checking a pattern formed on the wafer. It is difficult to check whether it is frequent, and it is possible to remove foreign matters by manual operation, which is likely to cause secondary contamination, and cause the focus equipment of the exposure equipment to be poor if the worker proceeds to ignore the fact that foreign matters are attached to the wafer. When the worker recognizes that the foreign matter is attached, the wafer chuck should be cleaned manually by using a cleaning paper, which in turn results in a decrease in productivity and a decrease in yield. Located on the upper surface of the chuck to remove foreign substances present on the wafer chuck And a suction means for guiding the lower surface of the suction means, the guide means for guiding the movement of the suction means, and a driving means for applying a driving force to move the suction means along the guide means. By providing the wafer chuck foreign matter removal device of the wafer exposure equipment, it is possible to quickly and easily remove the foreign matter completely, thereby preventing focus defects in advance and improving workability.

Description

Wafer chuck debris removal device for semiconductor wafer exposure equipment

The present invention relates to a semiconductor wafer exposure equipment, and more particularly, to a wafer chuck foreign material removal apparatus of the semiconductor wafer exposure equipment that can quickly and easily remove the foreign matter present in the wafer chuck.

Exposure equipment is an equipment that performs an exposure process, which is one of the semiconductor manufacturing processes. The exposure process moves light through a film on which a circuit is drawn by moving a wafer at a constant transfer pitch to form a circuit pattern on the photosensitive agent coated wafer. Says process to investigate.

1 is a perspective view schematically illustrating a structure of a conventional exposure apparatus, and as shown in the related art, a conventional exposure apparatus includes a lens unit (not shown) to allow light passing through a film on which a circuit is drawn to an upper side of a wafer (not shown). And a wafer chuck 1 which is provided at a lower distance from the lens portion and provided with several suction pins 1a on the upper surface to fix the wafer to the upper surface by a vacuum suction method, and the wafer chuck 1 The stage part 2 which is located in the lower part and moves the wafer chuck 1 by a fixed transfer pitch is comprised.

In this case, the stage 2 includes a jet Z slider (not shown) for moving the wafer chuck 1 up and down, and an X stage (not shown) for moving the wafer chuck 1 in one direction in parallel. ) And a w-stage (not shown) for moving the wafer chuck 1 in parallel on the same plane perpendicular to the X-stage.

Unexplained reference is a bar mirror 3 which detects whether the stage part 2 has moved correctly by transferring a laser beam.

In the conventional semiconductor wafer exposure apparatus configured as described above, the wafer placed on the wafer chuck 1 is positioned at the position of the reticle (not shown) while the wafer for exposure to the wafer chuck 1 provided on the upper surface of the stage 2 is vacuum-adsorbed. Then, the jet slider, the X stage, and the Y stage are moved to match the focus, and then an exposure process is performed.

On the other hand, as the integration density of semiconductors increases, the NA (Numerical Aperture) indicating the performance of the lens unit increases, and as the NA increases, the value of the minimum line width that the equipment can process becomes inversely smaller. As a result, the resolution is increased, but the focus margin inversely proportional to the square of NA, that is, DOF (Depth Of Focus) becomes small.

When the focus margin is small as described above, when a foreign material is present on the upper surface of the wafer chuck 1 on which the wafer is fixed during pattern exposure, the focus margin of the site where the foreign material exists is further reduced to cause a pattern defect. If not, the pattern of all of the wafers to be processed is made poor and the yield is reduced.

The presence or absence of such foreign matter is difficult to determine without visually confirming the wafer after finishing the exposure process and the developing process thereof, and more difficult in the case of forming a contact hole.

Accordingly, in the related art, the presence of foreign matter was confirmed by taking a working loss and confirming the pattern by using a test wafer, or by observing the top surface of the wafer chuck 1.

After it was determined that the foreign matter was on the upper surface of the wafer chuck 1 by this process, the process was continued after removing the foreign matter present on the upper surface of the wafer chuck using an oil stone (not shown).

The oil stone is a material of a smooth material, and the foreign material on the upper surface of the wafer chuck 1 is transferred to the wafer chuck 1 by an annular rotary motion of drawing a circle while the oil stone is in contact with the upper surface of the wafer chuck 1 by a human hand. The process was continued after falling out of).

However, the prior art as described above was performed by visually checking whether there is a foreign material on the upper surface of the wafer chuck 1 or by checking a pattern formed on the wafer, so it is difficult to check whether foreign matter has occurred at any time. The removal of foreign matter by manual operation was likely to cause secondary contamination, which in turn led to a decrease in productivity and yield.

In addition, in the related art, when the operator overlooks that the foreign matter is attached to the wafer and proceeds with the process, the focus of the exposure equipment may be caused, and when the worker recognizes that the foreign matter is attached, the wafer may be manually chucked by cleaning paper. There is a problem in that manual labor requires considerable effort.

Accordingly, the present invention has been devised to solve the above-described problems, and the wafer chuck foreign material of the semiconductor wafer exposure equipment for preventing the exposure defect or reducing the workability by quickly and easily removing the foreign matter of the wafer chuck. The purpose is to provide a removal device.

1 is a perspective view showing a typical semiconductor wafer exposure equipment.

Figure 2 is a perspective view showing a wafer chuck foreign matter removal apparatus according to the present invention.

** Explanation of symbols for main parts of drawings **

11; Suction plate 12; Suction hose

13; Inhaler 14; Moving roller

15; Drive shaft 21; support fixture

22; Support pin 23; Guide rail

24; Fixing screw 31; Drive motor

32; Lead screw

In order to achieve the object of the present invention as described above, the suction means for removing the foreign matter present in the wafer chuck, the moving means is installed on the bottom of the suction means to guide the suction means to move left and right, and the moving means The wafer chuck foreign material removal apparatus of the semiconductor wafer exposure equipment, characterized in that the support means is installed on the bottom of the support means for supporting the moving means, the driving means for applying a driving force to move the suction means along the moving means Is provided.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of a wafer chuck foreign matter removal apparatus of a semiconductor wafer exposure apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The wafer chuck foreign material removing apparatus according to the present invention, as shown in Figure 2, the suction means for removing the foreign matter present in the wafer chuck is located on the upper surface of the wafer chuck, the suction means is installed on the bottom of the suction means to move the suction means And guide means for guiding the driving means, and driving means for applying a driving force to move the suction means along the guide means.

The suction means includes a suction plate 11 having a plurality of suction holes (not shown) formed at a bottom thereof to suck foreign substances existing on the upper surface of the wafer chuck 1, and a suction hose 12 connected to the suction plate 11. ) And an inhaler 13 connected to the suction hose 12 to provide a suction force to the suction plate 11.

The guide means is provided with four support bases 21 installed on the outside of the exposure equipment, and the support pins 22 to be vertically movable above and below the support base 21 to adjust the horizontality of the following guide rails 23. And a guide rail 23 coupled to the upper surface of the support pin 22 to guide the suction plate 11 to reciprocate back and forth.

And a screw hole (not shown) is formed on one side of the support 21, the screw hole is inserted into the coupling screw 24 serves to fix the support pin 22.

The driving means is inserted into and coupled to the drive shaft 15 of the suction plate 11 by rotating by the driving force of the driving motor 31 and the driving motor 31 to generate the driving force. It consists of a lead screw 32 which moves.

Meanwhile, the suction plate 11 can be easily moved on the guide rail 23 on the bottom surface of the suction plate 11, and the bottom surface of the suction plate 11 contacts the wafer chuck 1 so that the wafer chuck 1 can be moved. In order to prevent the occurrence of scratches in the c), the moving roller 14 is installed in such a manner as to form a minimum gap between the wafer chuck 1 and the suction plate 11.

In the wafer chuck foreign material removing apparatus of the semiconductor wafer exposure apparatus according to the present invention configured as described above, if foreign matter is present on the upper surface of the wafer chuck 1, the driving means applies the driving force to the suction plate 11.

The suction plate 11 applied with the driving force moves the back and forth along the guide rail 23 back and forth along the guide rail 23 at a minimum distance from the wafer chuck 1 by the moving roller 14 to remove the foreign matter attached to the wafer chuck 1. Inhale.

As described above, the wafer chuck foreign material removing apparatus of the semiconductor wafer exposure apparatus according to the present invention can be quickly removed by using the foreign material removing apparatus according to the present invention that a worker removes the foreign material manually existing in the conventional wafer chuck. By removing the foreign matter completely and easily, it is possible to prevent poor focus and improve workability.

Claims (5)

Suction means for removing foreign substances present on the wafer chuck located on the upper surface of the wafer chuck, guide means installed on the bottom of the suction means to guide the movement of the suction means, and driving force to move the suction means along the guide means. Wafer chuck foreign material removal apparatus of the semiconductor wafer exposure equipment, characterized in that consisting of a drive means for applying. 2. The suction device according to claim 1, wherein the suction means comprises a suction plate having suction holes formed at a bottom thereof to suck particles existing on an upper surface of the wafer chuck, and an suction suction unit connected to the suction plate by a suction hose to provide suction force. Wafer chuck debris removal device for semiconductor wafer exposure equipment. The semiconductor wafer exposure apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the guide means comprises a guide rail for guiding the suction means to move and a support member coupled to the bottom of the guide rail to support the guide rail. Wafer chuck debris removal device. According to claim 3, The support member is a plurality of supports installed on the outer periphery of the wafer chuck, the support pin is inserted and coupled to the upper side of each support and vertically movable up and down to adjust the horizontality of the guide rail, The wafer chuck foreign material removal apparatus of the semiconductor wafer exposure equipment, characterized in that the fixing screw is installed on one side of the support to fix the support pin to the support. The semiconductor device of claim 1, wherein the driving means comprises a drive motor for generating a driving force, and a lead screw for moving the suction plate back and forth by the driving force of the driving motor. Device.