KR20070077978A - Outdoor fresh air conditioner and method for controlling a temperature and humidity of outdoor fresh air of the outdoor fresh air conditioner - Google Patents

Abstract

An outdoor fresh air conditioner and a method for controlling the temperature and humidity of outdoor fresh air of the outdoor fresh air conditioner are provided to prevent a clean room from being polluted due to outdoor air by installing a pollutant removing unit. An outdoor fresh air conditioner(100) includes an inflow duct(120), a purifying unit, a transferring duct, and a monitoring apparatus. The inflow duct makes outdoor air flow in. The purifying unit has a filter unit(112) filtering pollutants inside the outdoor air introduced through the inflow duct, a temperature controlling unit controlling the temperature of the outdoor air, and a humidity controlling unit controlling the humidity of the outdoor air. The transferring duct transferring the outdoor air from the purifying unit to the inside of a clean room(20). The monitoring apparatus is installed at a discharging unit discharging the outdoor air from the transferring duct to the inside of the clean room, and monitors the temperature and humidity of the outdoor air discharged inside of the clean room.

Description

OUTDOOR FRESH AIR CONDITIONER AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING A TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY OF OUTDOOR FRESH AIR OF THE OUTDOOR FRESH AIR CONDITIONER}

1 is a configuration diagram schematically showing an outer shell according to the present invention and a semiconductor manufacturing plant having the same.

Figure 2 is a perspective view showing the discharge portion of the outer shell according to the present invention.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling the temperature and humidity of the outside air of the outer shell according to the present invention.

* Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings *

1: semiconductor manufacturing plant 114: temperature controller

10: treatment chamber 116: pollutant removal unit

20: clean room 118: humidity control unit

30: air circulation unit 119: blower

40 frame 120 inlet duct

100: outer unit 130: supply duct

112: filter unit 140: monitoring device

The present invention relates to an outer shell, and more particularly, to an outer shell for supplying the outside air to the clean room of the semiconductor and flat panel display manufacturing process and a method for controlling the temperature and humidity of the outer air of the outer shell.

Usually, semiconductor and flat panel display manufacturing plants have a clean room for performing substrate processing and an air circulation unit for circulating air in the clean room outside the clean room. In addition, the outdoor fresh air conditioner controls the temperature and humidity of the outside air, removes contaminants in the outside air, and supplies outdoor fresh air to the air circulation unit or the clean room inside the manufacturing plant. The outside air supplied into the manufacturing plant is circulated inside the manufacturing plant to discharge contaminants in the cleanroom to the outside of the cleanroom to maintain cleanliness in the cleanroom.

The general external unit has a purifying unit that controls the temperature and humidity of the outside air and removes contaminants in the outside air. The purifier removes contaminants in the outside air and controls the temperature and humidity of the outside air. In addition, the purifying unit determines whether the temperature / humidity of the external air, the supply amount, and the residual amount of the contaminants in the external air deviate from the standard value, and when the purification unit satisfies this, the external air is supplied into the clean room.

However, the external unit having the above-described configuration controls the temperature / humidity of the external air, the supply amount and the residual amount of contaminants in the external air in the purifying unit, but the temperature and humidity of the external air supplied to the clean room are substantially The temperature and humidity of the outside air adjusted by the purifying unit, and the amount of supply may be different. In other words, the general external tanker controls only the temperature and humidity of the external air and the supply amount before the external air is supplied to the inside of the clean room. Could not be controlled.

Therefore, even if the temperature, humidity, and supply amount of the outside air are controlled in the purification unit, if the temperature, humidity, and supply amount of the outside air discharged into the clean room are outside the preset tolerances, the temperature and humidity of the outside air inside the clean room. Sensitive processing devices, such as exposure devices, can reduce process efficiency.

An object of the present invention for solving the above problems is to provide an external tank that can monitor the temperature and humidity of the external air discharged into the clean room, and the supply amount and the external air temperature / humidity control method of the external tank. .

Still another object of the present invention is to provide an external air conditioner capable of preventing contamination of a clean room by external air and a method of controlling external air temperature / humidity of the external air conditioner.

The outer shell according to the present invention for achieving the above object is an inlet duct for introducing outside air, a filter unit for filtering the contaminants in the outside air introduced through the inlet duct and a temperature control unit for adjusting the temperature of the outside air And a purifying unit having a humidity control unit for controlling humidity of external air, a transfer duct for transferring external air from the purifying unit to the inside of the clean room, and a discharge unit for discharging external air from the transfer duct into the clean room. And a monitoring device for monitoring the temperature and humidity of the external air discharged into the clean room.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the monitoring device receives a sensing member for measuring the temperature and humidity of the outside air flowing into the clean room and the data measured by the sensing member is a predetermined tolerance value of the temperature and humidity of the outside air It includes a control unit for determining whether or not.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the controller controls the purification unit to adjust the temperature and humidity of the outside air when the temperature and humidity of the outside air deviate from a preset allowable value.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the purifying unit may include a filter unit filtering contaminants in the outside air, a temperature control unit controlling a temperature of the outside air, a pollutant removing unit removing the pollutants in the outside air, and humidity of the outside air. Humidity control unit for adjusting, and may include a blower.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the monitoring device further includes a display member for displaying the temperature and humidity of the outside air measured by the sensing member or the result determined by the controller.

The method for controlling the temperature and humidity of the outside air introduced into the clean room by the external unit according to the present invention for achieving the above object is to grasp the temperature and humidity of the outside air from the discharge portion to which the outside air is discharged to the clean room The temperature and humidity are adjusted by determining whether the temperature and humidity of the outside air deviate from a preset allowable value.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the grasp of the temperature and humidity of the outside air is made in a portion where the outside air is discharged to the processing chamber in which a predetermined process is performed, and the adjustment of the temperature and humidity is carried out at the temperature controller and the temperature. It is done in the purification section to control the humidity.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the invention is not limited to the embodiments described herein but may be embodied in other forms. Rather, the embodiments introduced herein are provided so that the disclosure may be made thorough and complete, and to fully convey the spirit of the invention to those skilled in the art. Portions denoted by like reference numerals denote like elements throughout the specification.

(Example)

1 is a configuration diagram schematically showing an outer shell according to the present invention and a semiconductor manufacturing plant having the same, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a discharge part of the outer shell according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, the manufacturing plant 1 according to the present invention includes a processing chamber 10 and an external tank 100. The processing chamber 10 includes a clean room 20 for performing a substrate processing process, an air circulation unit 30 for circulating external air in and outside the clean room 20, and the clean room 20 and the air circulation unit 30. ) Includes a frame 40 to be installed.

The clean room 20 has a space for processing a wafer used for semiconductor manufacturing or a glass substrate used for flat panel display manufacturing. To this end, devices (not shown) that perform a predetermined process are installed in the interior space of the clean room 20. In the upper portion of the clean room 20, a plurality of filters 22 are installed to introduce external air into the space in the clean room 20 and remove contaminants in the outside air. The filters 22 finally filter the contaminants remaining in the outside air supplied from the outer tank 100 to be described later. On the bottom of the clean room 20, grating plates 24 having discharge holes through which external air is discharged from a space in the clean room 20 are installed.

In the present embodiment, the clean room 20 is described as a clean room used in the semiconductor and flat panel display fields as an example, but the clean room 20 may be used in various industrial fields.

The air circulation unit circulates outside air outside the clean room 20. That is, the air circulation unit 30 has a space surrounding the clean room 20 outside the clean room 20, and the space circulates air discharged to the grid 24 of the clean room 20 to clean the room 20. The filter 22 is supplied to the clean room 20. The air circulation unit 30 has a discharge unit (not shown) for discharging a predetermined amount of air to the outside of the processing chamber 10. The discharge part discharges some of the air circulated in the clean room 20 to the outside of the process room 10. The outer tank 100 supplies external air to the processing chamber 10 as much as the discharged air.

The outer tank 100 includes a purification unit 110, an inlet duct 120, a supply duct 130, and a monitoring device 140. The purification unit 110 controls the temperature and humidity of the outside air, and removes contaminants in the outside air. To this end, the purifying unit 110 is an inlet and a supply unit (111a, 111b), filter unit 112, temperature control unit 114, pollutant removal unit 116, humidity control unit 118, and a blower ( 119).

Inlet 111a receives external air from the inlet duct 120. In addition, the supply unit 111b is supplied with external air from the purification unit 110 to the supply duct 130.

The filter unit 112 filters contaminants in the outside air. To this end, the filter unit 112 has first to third filters 112a, 112b, 112c. The first filter 112a primarily filters relatively large contaminants in the outside air. The second filter 112b secondaryly filters the contaminants in the outside air filtered by the first filter 112a. The third filter 112c finally filters particles in the outside air. The third filter 112c may remove anion molecular contaminants in the outside air. The filter unit 112 removes relatively large particles of contaminants in the outside air, and the fine contaminants are removed by the contaminant removing unit 116.

The temperature controller 114 adjusts the temperature of the outside air. To this end, the temperature control unit 114 includes a cooler 114a and a heater 114b. The cooler 114a operates when the temperature of the outside air is higher than the preset temperature, and the heater 114b operates when the temperature of the outside air is lower than the preset temperature. To this end, the cooler 114a and the heater 114b have a cooling coil (not shown) and a heating coil (not shown), respectively.

The pollutant removing unit 116 removes pollutants in the outside air. At this time, the pollutants removed by the pollutant removing unit 116 are particles of relatively fine particles. To this end, the pollutant removing unit 116 sprays deionized water into the outside air flowing through the purification unit 100 to remove pollutants in the outside air by the deionized water. The pollutant removal unit 116 may be provided with a nozzle (not shown) for supplying deionized water.

Humidity control unit 118 adjusts the humidity of the outside air. To this end, the humidity control unit 118 may be provided with a sensing member (not shown) that can measure the humidity of the outside air. The sensing member measures the humidity of the outside air, and the humidity controller 118 adjusts the humidity of the outside air to a predetermined humidity according to the humidity of the outside air measured by the sensing member.

The blower 119 supplies external air to the processing chamber 10. That is, the blower 119 provides a supply pressure so that the outside air is supplied to the purification unit 110 through the inlet duct 120, and the supply pressure so that the outside air is supplied to the processing chamber 10 through the supply duct 130. To provide.

The inlet duct 120 introduces external air into the inlet 111a of the purification unit 110. A plurality of inlet ducts 120 may be installed. The purifying unit 110 introduces external air into the purifying unit 110 by the installed blower 119. And the supply duct 130 supplies external air to the process chamber 10 from the supply part 111b of the purification part 110d. One end of the supply duct 130 extends into the process chamber 10. One end of the supply duct 130 extending to the processing chamber 10 has a discharge member (reference numeral 132 of FIG. 2) through which external air is discharged to the processing chamber 10. The discharge member 132 is for discharging the outside air supplied by the supply duct 130 into the processing chamber 10, particularly the clean chamber 20.

The monitoring device 140 controls the temperature and humidity of the outside air supplied to the process chamber 10. In addition, the monitoring device 140 may also control the supply amount of external air. 2, the monitoring device 140 includes a sensing member 142 and a controller 144. The sensing member 142 is installed in the discharge member 132. As an example, the sensing member 142 is installed to measure the temperature and humidity of the external air discharged to the process chamber 10 through the discharge port 132a of the discharge member 132. In addition, the sensing member 142 may also measure the discharge amount of the external air discharged through the discharge port 132a. The sensing member 142 measures the temperature and humidity of the outside air and transmits the measured data to the controller 144.

The control unit 144 receives data on the temperature and humidity of the outside air from the sensing member 142. The controller 144 receives data from the sensing member 142 to determine whether the temperature and humidity of the outside air deviate from a preset allowance, and adjusts the temperature and humidity of the outside air.

The controller 144 may be provided with a display member (not shown) that displays data on temperature and humidity of the outside air measured by the sensing member 142. The display member displays the temperature and humidity of the external air, and the supply amount so that an operator may recognize the display member. Alternatively, the display member may be an alarm device that generates an alarm when the temperature and humidity of the outside air deviate from allowable values.

The monitoring device 140 having the above-described configuration may monitor the temperature and humidity of the external air discharged into the process chamber 10.

Hereinafter, an operation process and effects of the outer shell 100 having the above-described configuration will be described in detail.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling the temperature and humidity of the outside air flowing into the process chamber according to the present invention. Referring to FIG. 3, when the process of the outer tank 100 is started, the purification unit 110 receives external air from the inlet duct 120. The outside air introduced into the purification unit 110 flows through the filter unit 112, the temperature control unit 114, the pollutant removal unit 116, and the humidity control unit 118 in order to control temperature and humidity, and Removal of contaminants takes place.

The outside air, in which the temperature and humidity are controlled by the purification unit 110 and the pollutants are removed, is supplied to the process chamber 10 by the supply duct 130. At this time, the outside air is discharged to the processing chamber 10 by the discharge member 132 of the processing chamber 10. In addition, the sensing member 142 of the monitoring device 140 senses the temperature and humidity of the external air discharged to the process chamber 10 through the discharge port 132a of the discharge member 132 (S110).

Data on the temperature and humidity of the outside air detected by the sensing member 142 is transmitted to the controller 144. The controller 144 determines whether the temperature and humidity of the outside air deviate from a preset allowable value from the data (S120). In this case, when the temperature and humidity of the outside air deviate from the preset allowable value, the controller 144 controls the purification unit 110 to adjust the temperature and humidity of the outside air (S130).

Since the method of controlling the temperature and humidity described above may monitor the temperature and humidity of the external air finally supplied to the process chamber 10 by the outer tank 100, the external unit 100 may be externally discharged from the purification unit 110 to the discharge member 132. It is possible to quickly determine when the temperature and humidity of the outside air change while the air is supplied.

In addition, the temperature and humidity control method according to the present invention by sensing the temperature and humidity discharged into the process chamber 10, by automatically adjusting the purification unit 110 of the outer tank 100, the temperature and humidity of the outside air The adjustment of can be done automatically.

In the present exemplary embodiment, the controller 144 controls the purification unit 110 to adjust the temperature and humidity of the external air when the temperature and humidity of the external air deviate from a preset allowable value. And a method of controlling humidity may be variously applied. For example, the controller 144 may include a temperature / humidity control device (not shown) that adjusts the temperature and humidity of the external air discharged by the discharge member 144 to adjust the temperature and humidity of the external air by itself. have.

In addition, in the present embodiment, the monitoring device 140 is described as an example installed in the discharge member 132, the monitoring device 140 is for monitoring the temperature and humidity of the outside air flowing into the processing chamber 10, The arrangement of the monitoring device 140 may be installed at various locations.

In the above, the air shower system and method according to the present invention has been described in accordance with the above description and drawings, but this is merely an example, and various changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention. .

As described above, the method for controlling the temperature and humidity of the external air introduced into the clean room by the external heater according to the present invention may monitor the temperature and humidity of the external air discharged to the clean room, and the discharge amount.

In addition, the outer tank according to the present invention and the method for controlling the temperature and humidity of the external air introduced into the clean room by the outer tank can automatically adjust the temperature and humidity, and the discharge amount of the external air discharged to the clean room.

Claims (5)

In the external unit supplying the outside air to the clean room, Inlet duct for introducing outside air, A purifying unit having a filter unit for filtering the contaminants in the outside air introduced through the inlet duct, a temperature control unit for controlling the temperature of the outside air, and a humidity control unit for controlling the humidity of the outside air; A transfer duct for transferring external air from the purification unit into the clean room; And a monitoring device installed in a discharge unit for discharging external air from the transfer duct into the clean room to monitor the temperature and humidity of the external air discharged into the clean room. The method of claim 1, The monitoring device, Sensing member for measuring the temperature and humidity of the outside air flowing into the clean room, and the discharge amount; And a controller configured to receive the data measured by the sensing member and determine whether the temperature and humidity of the outside air deviate from a preset allowable value. The method of claim 2, The control unit, When the temperature and humidity of the outside air deviates from a predetermined allowable value, the outer unit is characterized in that to control the purification unit to adjust the temperature and humidity of the outside air. The method of claim 2 or 3, The monitoring device, And a display member for displaying the temperature and humidity of the outside air measured by the sensing member or the result determined by the controller. In the method for controlling the temperature and humidity of the outside air flowing into the clean room by the external heater, And controlling the temperature and humidity by determining whether the temperature and humidity of the external air from which the external air is discharged to the clean room deviate from a preset allowable value, and controlling the temperature and humidity.

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