KR20020045025A - Chamber apparatus including a cooling line of wafer stage and wafer processing method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A chamber apparatus having a cooling line on a wafer supporting stand and a wafer process using the same are provided to reduce a working space and the manufacturing cost by installing a wafer supporting stand for cooling a wafer. CONSTITUTION: A chamber apparatus has a wafer supporting stand. The wafer supporting stand comprises a spiral-type heating line(210), a cooling line(220) having the same shape of the heating line(210) located along the heating line(210), and an insulating material(230) made of a ceramic located between the spiral-type heating line(210) and the cooling line(220). At this point, the insulating material(230) is installed so as to prevent a heat transfer between the cooling line(220) and heating line(210), thereby increasing the efficiency through an enough ascent and descent of a temperature. In cooling a wafer, the cooling line(220) is ascended and the heating line(210) is descended to contact the wafer with the cooling line(220).

Description

Chamber apparatus including a cooling line of wafer stage and wafer processing process using the same

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a chamber of semiconductor equipment and a method of processing the same, and more particularly, to a chamber device having a cooling line on a wafer support and a wafer processing process using the same.

In the process of manufacturing a semiconductor device, a semiconductor substrate, that is, a wafer, is subjected to various steps such as a deposition process of a thin film, a process of etching a laminated thin film, a cleaning process, and a drying process. In such a process, the wafer will be under the most suitable conditions for carrying out the process. For example, the etching or thin film deposition process is performed by physical or chemical methods, and the wafer is usually heated to an appropriate temperature to activate a reaction between the wafer and the etching source or deposition material source. The wafer thus heated is handled in a subsequent process after the process is finished, cooled to a state before the process.

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a semiconductor device illustrated to explain a wafer processing process according to the prior art, and an example of an ashing apparatus is taken as an example.

Referring to FIG. 1, the ashing apparatus includes a loader 10, a transfer module 20, process modules 40 and 50, and a cooling chamber 30. In the case of the ashing process, the wafer of the cassette (not shown) is unloaded by the loader 10 and then ashed in the chamber (not shown) of the first process module 40 through the transfer module 20. . As the high temperature process of 250 ° C. is used in the chamber for high productivity, unloading into the cassette without cooling the wafer may cause melting of the cassette. Therefore, a process of cooling the wafer using the cooling chamber 30 is required. In FIG. 1, the second process module 50 is required for the subsequent process after the ashing process.

However, the cooling chamber 30 causes problems such as price increase due to the complicated configuration of the robot due to the reduction in throughput, the decrease in production, and the increase in the number of copper wires.

An object of the present invention is to provide a chamber device capable of cooling a wafer in situ.

Another technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a wafer processing step using the chamber apparatus.

1 is a block diagram of a semiconductor device illustrated to explain a wafer processing process according to the prior art.

2 is a schematic diagram of a process module shown for explaining a chamber apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3A, 3B and 3C are a plan view and a cross-sectional view showing a wafer support used in a chamber apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram illustrating a semiconductor device for explaining a wafer processing process using the process module of FIG. 2.

Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of a process module shown for explaining a chamber apparatus according to another embodiment of the present invention.

6a, b, and c are a plan view and a cross-sectional view showing a wafer support used in the chamber apparatus according to another embodiment of the present invention.

<Description of Signs of Major Parts of Drawings>

110: gas inlet 120: gas exhaust

130: wafer 140: wafer support

150: heating block 160: chamber

191: gas supply device 193: chamber device

195: gas exhaust device 197: authorized power supply

199: cooling means 310: loader

320: transfer module

340: a first process module 1

350: second process module

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a chamber apparatus, a hermetically sealed chamber, a gas inlet through which gas is supplied into the chamber, a gas exhaust mechanism through which the gas is exhausted to the outside of the chamber, and And a wafer supporter connected to an applied power supply unit to heat the wafer and to support, heat, and cool the wafer at the top of the heater. The wafer support has a cooling line connected to the heating device and a heating line circulating heat, and a cooling line paired with the heating line between the heating line connected to the cooling means outside the chamber to circulate the refrigerant. .

Here, it is preferable to further include a heat insulator between the cooling line and the heating line, the heating line and the cooling line can be made in a spiral shape.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a chamber apparatus, which includes a closed chamber, a gas inlet for supplying gas into the chamber, a gas exhaust port through which the gas is exhausted to the outside of the chamber, and a lower end in the chamber. And a wafer support installed to perform a function of supporting and cooling the wafer. The wafer support includes a cooling line connected to cooling means outside the chamber and a pusher pin configured to pair with the cooling line between the cooling lines.

Here, the pusher pin may heat the wafer by lifting the wafer inside the chamber, and the heating of the wafer is preferably performed by indirect heating means outside the chamber.

In addition, the heating line and the cooling line is preferably made in a spiral shape.

In the present invention for solving the above other technical problem, the wafer processing step in the chamber, the wafer support having a chamber, a cooling line and a heating line, a heating apparatus, a gas inlet and a gas exhaust mechanism, the wafer as the wafer support After loading, gas is injected from the gas inlet, and the heating line of the wafer support is raised to heat the wafer. Subsequently, the gas is exhausted through the gas exhaust port and the cooling line of the wafer support is raised to cool the wafer. Then unloading the wafer out of the chamber.

Here, it is preferable to raise the heating line of the wafer support and then lower the heating line to its original position after applying heat to the wafer.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the present embodiment is not limited to the embodiments disclosed below, but will be implemented in various forms, and only these embodiments are intended to complete the disclosure of the present invention, and fully scope the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. It is provided to inform you.

The chamber apparatus and the wafer processing process using the same in the present invention can be applied to various chambers of semiconductor equipment used for hard bake and soft bake, diffusion process and ashing process in lithography process. Can be. However, in the preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described by taking an ashing apparatus and an ashing process as an example. In addition, the embodiment of the present invention describes a method of directly heating a wafer, for example, a chamber apparatus used in the case of a heating method using a heating block. In another embodiment of the present invention, a method of indirectly heating a wafer, for example, a chamber apparatus used in the case of a heating method using a lamp will be described.

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of a process module shown to explain a chamber apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, the chamber apparatus 193 is provided with a cooling line (220 in Figure 3) on the wafer support 150, cooling function Also perform.

Referring to FIG. 2, the process module includes a gas supply device 191, a gas exhaust device 195, an applied power supply unit 197, a cooling unit 199, and a chamber device 193. The gas supply device 191 is connected to the gas inlet 110 of the chamber device 193, and the gas exhaust device 195 is connected to the gas exhaust port 120 of the chamber device 193. In addition, the applied power supply unit 197 is connected to the heating device 150 under the chamber device 193, the cooling means 199 supplies the refrigerant to the wafer support 140 in the chamber device 193.

The chamber device 193 has a gas inlet 110 through which gas is supplied from the gas supply device 191 on an upper surface of the sealed chamber 160, and a pump (not shown) is provided on the side of the chamber 160. A gas exhaust port 120 through which the gas is exhausted by the connected gas exhaust device 195 is formed. In addition, a heating device 150 connected to an applied power supply unit 197 is installed in the lower portion of the chamber 160. For example, a heating block is provided. A wafer support 140 for supporting, heating, and cooling a wafer is provided on the heating device 150. Equipped. The gas inlet 110 and the gas exhaust port 120 may be made on the side and bottom surfaces according to the structure of the chamber, or may be modified in various forms.

The gas supply device 191 supplies a reaction gas for ashing in the hermetically sealed chamber 160 and a purge gas for reducing the inside of the chamber 160 from vacuum to atmospheric pressure, and adjusts the gas supply to a proper gas supply. Do this. The gas exhaust device 195 is provided with a pump (not shown) to adjust the pressure in the chamber 160 constantly, and to process the wafer and exhaust the remaining waste gas. The applied power supply unit 197 applies power to the heating device 150, for example, to generate high heat in the heating block. The cooling means 199 is a device for making a refrigerant to circulate in the cooling line (220 of FIG. 3) of the wafer support 140.

The chamber 160 is hermetically sealed, the upper surface of the chamber 160 has a gas inlet 110 and the side of the gas exhaust port 120 is made. The gas inlet 110 is an inlet for sucking the reaction gas and the purge gas supplied from the gas supply device 191 into the inside. The gas exhaust device 120 is an outlet through which the gas is exhausted to the outside of the chamber 160 by the gas exhaust device 195, and the inside of the chamber 160 is formed in a vacuum state before the ashing process is started. Process gas and by-products present in 160 are exhausted. The heating device 150, for example, the heating block generates a high heat by the power applied by the power supply unit 197. The generated heat is transferred to the heating line (210 of FIG. 3) of the wafer support 140 to heat the wafer 130. The wafer support 140 supports the wafer 130 and transfers heat to the wafer 130 to process the wafer 130, and circulates a refrigerant when it is necessary to cool the wafer 130. And the wafer 130 is cooled. A detailed description will be described below with reference to FIG. 3.

Figure 3 shows a wafer support used in the chamber apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, Figure 3a shows a top view of the wafer support. 3B shows a cross-sectional view of the wafer support when the wafer is heated, and FIG. 3C shows a cross-sectional view of the wafer support when the wafer is cooled.

Referring to FIG. 3A, the wafer support is composed of a cooling line 220 paired with a heating line 210 between the spiral heating line 210 and the heating line 210. In FIG. 3A, the heating line 210 is outside the cooling line 220, but the cooling line 220 may be outside the heating line 210.

The high heat generated in the heating block (150 in FIG. 2) is circulated in a spiral shape along the A 'path of the heating line 210 and both ends of the heating line 210 are connected to the heating block. In addition, in the cooling process after the wafer heating process is completed, the cooling water is helically circulated along the path B 'to B' of the cooling line 220 connected to the cooling means (199 of FIG. However, the heat or cooling water may be circulated from inside to outside through the paths A 'to A or B' to B '. The heating line 210 may circulate the heated medium or may make a line composed of coils to circulate heat. The cooling line 220 may circulate a liquid or gaseous cooling medium to cool the wafer.

3B shows a cross section of the wafer support when heating the wafer, when heating the wafer the heating line 210 is lifted up to contact the wafer. The cooling line 220 is then relatively in contact with the wafer so that heat flowing through the heating line 210 is transferred to the upper wafer.

3C shows the wafer support when cooling the wafer, with the cooling line 220 up and the heating line 210 lowered as opposed to heating the wafer. Thus, the cooling line 220 cools the wafer.

In FIG. 3, a heat insulator 230 is inserted between the heating line 210 and the cooling line 220 of the wafer support to prevent heat transfer between the heating line 210 and the cooling line 220, thereby sufficiently increasing and decreasing the temperature. To increase efficiency. The overall shape of the heat insulator 230 is a spiral shape, it is preferable that a ceramic or the like is used as the heat insulator.

In FIG. 3, the heating line 210 and the cooling line 220 are briefly shown for convenience of description, but in practice, the heating line 210 and the cooling line 220 are densely constructed so that the temperature difference of the wafer surface when the wafer is heated. Minimize the cooling and heating uniformity as much as possible. In addition, it is obvious that the present invention may be modified in various forms other than the spiral heating line 210 and the cooling line 220 by modifying the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram illustrating a semiconductor device for explaining a wafer processing process using the process module of FIG. 2.

Referring to FIG. 4, a wafer unloaded from a cassette (not shown) by the loader 310 is loaded onto the wafer support (140 in FIG. 2) of the first process module 340 through the transfer module 320. And the process is processed by the operation of the first process module 340. Compared to FIG. 1 of the related art, the first process module 340 may directly proceed to the second process module 350 without passing through the cooling chamber 30 of FIG. 1.

4 and 2, the loader 310, for example, the X-Y robot, the SCARA robot, etc., loads the wafer of the cassette into the transfer module 320. The X-Y robot operates in two-dimensional space, and the SCARA robot is suitable for moving in three-dimensional space.

Subsequently, the wafer 130 is loaded onto the wafer support 140 of the first process module 340 by the operation of the transfer module 320. The transfer module 320 enables each process to be processed at an appropriate cost in a production system with high throughput, such as process development and testing, and includes a platform, a wafer transfer mechanism, and a control device.

After the wafer 130 is loaded, a gas supply device 191 for supplying gas and adjusting gas amount is operated to inject reaction gas and purge gas through the gas inlet 110, and the wafer support 140 of the wafer support 140. The heating line is raised to heat the wafer 130 to process the wafer. After the wafer 130 is processed, the heating line heated to the wafer 130 is lowered to its original position.

Subsequently, the gas reacted with the wafer is exhausted through the gas exhaust port 120, and at the same time as the exhaust, the cooling line of the wafer support 140 is raised to cool the wafer 130. In the related art, the wafer is moved outside the chamber device 193 to be cooled in the cooling chamber. However, by providing a cooling line on the wafer support 140, the space for installing the cooling chamber can be saved, and the process is processed in-situ. This can increase the throughput of the wafer.

The wafer is then unloaded out of chamber 160 and moved to second process module 350 for subsequent processing.

As a result, the process module according to the present invention having a gas supply device, a gas exhaust device, a cooling means and an applied power supply in the chamber device eliminates the need for a separate cooling chamber.

5 and 6 are views for explaining a chamber apparatus and a wafer support according to another embodiment of the present invention. Compared with the first embodiment, the heating device 1150 for heating the wafer is not a direct heating method. Indirect heating method is used. Therefore, the structure of the wafer support 1140 is also different. Therefore, the following description will focus on the structure and function different from the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a process module shown to explain a chamber apparatus according to another embodiment of the present invention. An apparatus for heating a wafer outside the chamber 1193, for example, a wafer 1130 having a lamp 1150 or the like. Heat). Therefore, the wafer support 1140 does not require a heating line for heating the wafer 1130. Therefore, the wafer support 1140 serves to support and cool the wafer. Detailed structure and function of the wafer support 1140 will be described below with reference to FIG. 6. Unexplained reference numeral 1110 denotes a gas inlet, 1120 denotes a gas exhaust port, 1191 denotes a gas supply device, 1193 denotes a chamber device, 1195 denotes a gas exhaust device, 1197 denotes an applied power supply unit, and 1199 denotes cooling means.

Figure 6 shows a wafer support used in the chamber apparatus according to another embodiment of the present invention, Figure 6a shows a plan view of the wafer support, Figure 6b shows a cross-sectional view of the wafer support when the wafer is heated, Figure 6c is a wafer The cross section of the wafer support base at the time of cooling is shown.

In FIG. 6A the refrigerant is circulated from B to B 'or from B' to B. The difference from the first embodiment is that there is a spiral pusher pin 1210 instead of a heating line. The pusher pin 1210 functions to raise the wafer so that the wafer does not contact the cooling line 1230 when the wafer is heated. Raising the pusher pin 1210 facilitates indirect heating means outside the chamber, for example, to absorb heat from the lamp.

The chamber apparatus according to the present invention includes a wafer support for cooling the wafer in-situ in the chamber apparatus, thereby eliminating the need for a cooling chamber, thereby reducing the working space and increasing the throughput.

Claims (9)

A closed chamber; A gas inlet through which gas is supplied into the chamber; A gas exhaust port through which the gas is exhausted out of the chamber; A heating device connected to an applied power source outside the chamber and installed in the chamber to apply heat to a wafer inside the chamber; And Cooling of the structure formed in the upper portion of the heating device and the heating line is connected between the heating line and the heating line connected to the heating device and the heating line connected to the cooling means outside the chamber and the refrigerant is circulated And a wafer support comprising a line. The chamber apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an insulator for insulating heat between the cooling line and the heating line. The chamber apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the heating line and the cooling line have a spiral shape. A closed chamber; A gas inlet through which gas is supplied into the chamber; A gas exhaust port through which the gas is exhausted out of the chamber; And A wafer support having a cooling line installed at a lower end of the chamber and connected to a cooling means outside the chamber, the cooling line circulating with a coolant, and a pusher pin having a structure paired with the cooling line between the cooling lines. Chamber apparatus made of. The chamber apparatus of claim 4, wherein the pusher pin lifts a wafer inside the chamber to heat the wafer. 6. The chamber apparatus according to claim 5, wherein heating the wafer is performed by indirect heating means outside the chamber. The chamber apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the heating line and the cooling line are spirally shaped. In a wafer processing process using a chamber support device having a wafer support, a chamber, a heating device, a gas inlet and a gas exhaust port having a cooling line and a heating line, Loading a wafer with the wafer support; A second step of injecting gas from the gas inlet and heating the wafer support to raise the heating line to heat the wafer to process the wafer; Exhausting the gas into the gas exhaust port and raising a cooling line of a wafer support to cool the wafer; And a fourth step of unloading the wafer out of the chamber. 9. The wafer processing process according to claim 8, further comprising the step of lowering the heating line to its original position after the second step.