TW201315661A - Wafer boat assembly - Google Patents

Abstract

A wafer boat assembly (1) that comprises a frame (10), including a plurality of vertically extending rods (12), which, at spaced apart positions along their length define a plurality of sub-carrier mounting positions (16), and at least one debris collection plate (20), one of which is connected to said rods (12) in between each two adjacent sub-carrier mounting positions (16). The assembly also comprises a plurality of sub-carriers (30), each configured to hold a plurality of substantially vertically oriented, horizontally spaced apart planar substrates (40), and each being being detachably mountable in a sub-carrier mounting position (16) of the frame (10). When the sub-carriers (30) are mounted in the frame (10), each debris collection plate (20) provides for a debris collection area (22) that extends underneath a sub-carrier (30) mounted in a respective associated sub-carrier mounting position (16), across at least a footprint thereof.

Description

Crystal boat package

The present invention relates to the field of semiconductor processing, and more particularly to vertical wafer boat packages that support a plurality of thin semiconductor wafers.

The vertical boat is mainly used to provide sufficient support for the semiconductor wafer when it is processed in a vertical furnace. It is best to minimize the local gravity stress and thermal stress on the wafer to avoid sliding and plastic deformation. .

Vertical boat typically includes three or more vertically extending bars, each defining a plurality of vertically spaced grooves. Three or more grooves on different rods in the same vertical position may determine the wafer holding position to support the wafer from the horizontal direction. Therefore, a wafer boat can support multiple horizontally oriented wafers, one pressed against the other. This boat configuration is more common in older technologies and is well suited for supporting wafers of 300 mm and smaller diameters.

However, wafers are becoming thinner and larger. For example, today's solar cell manufacturing uses thinner wafers than traditional integrated device manufacturing. Therefore, these solar cell wafers are also relatively more vulnerable. Similarly, the average diameter of wafers used in the production of integrated devices is steadily increasing. Although these wafers are much thicker than the aforementioned solar cell wafers, they are subject to relatively higher gravitational and thermal stresses, so the risk of damage increases. In summary, the wafer may be damaged during processing due to stress on the wafer and during loading or unloading of the wafer onto the boat. In either case, the wafer is possible Breaking into visible or invisible fragments that may fall onto the machined surface of the underlying wafer, rendering its damage unusable.

In order to accommodate well-arranged relatively large and/or thin wafers, recently introduced wafer boats are equipped with (additional) support areas, typically in the form of support rings or support plates. US 5,219,079 provides a sample of such a boat with vertically separated wafer holding positions in which each holding position is defined by a horizontal support plate to support a horizontally oriented wafer. Although the US'079 wafer boat reduces the stress on the wafer during processing, the large vertical spacing between the wafers due to the intermediate support plate increases the economic cost. Moreover, to facilitate placement of the wafer on the support plate or removal from the board, each support plate must have a distinct opening to make room for the wafer transfer robot end effector. Therefore, when the wafer breaks, the debris may still fall through the opening onto the machined surface of the underlying wafer.

One of the goals of the present invention is to solve or reduce one or more of the above problems associated with known wafer boat packaging. More importantly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a wafer boat package that reduces the risk of wafer breakage and, in the event of wafer breakage, also reduces the risk of damage to other wafer support wafers.

To this end, the primary aspect of the invention is a wafer boat package. The boat assembly includes a bracket that includes at least one substantially vertical extension member, the plurality of spaced apart positions defining a plurality of subcarrier mounting locations, each of which provides at least one subcarrier mounting device . The bracket also has at least one debris collecting plate connected to the above (at least one) extension rod member, The person should extend outward and be substantially perpendicular thereto; and a piece ("at least one", preferably just "one") of debris collection plates should be provided between every two adjacent subcarrier mounting locations. The boat package also includes a plurality of subcarriers, each configured to support a plurality of substantially vertical, horizontally spaced planar substrates, and each of which can be detachably mounted to the sub-frame by a respective subcarrier mounting device Carrier installation location. When the subcarriers are mounted on the respective subcarrier mounting positions on the support, each of the debris collection plates occupies a debris collection area that extends below the subcarriers installed at the corresponding subcarrier mounting position, spanning at least The area occupied by a subcarrier.

The wafer boat described here stores wafers in a vertical rather than horizontal direction, thus reducing the risk of wafer shards during processing. In this way, the wafer is less likely to bend or deform due to its own weight, thus also reducing the gravitational stress on the wafer that may cause it to rupture. In addition, the vertical orientation of the wafers also contributes to economically valuable dense wafer packages, such as aligning wafers over short distances (horizontal).

Thanks to the vertical orientation of the wafer and the debris collection plate that exists between the subcarriers, the risk of damage to other wafers due to cracking of some wafers during processing is greatly reduced. When the wafer is broken, its debris will still fall. However, because the wafer is placed in a vertical orientation, debris from the damaged wafer will fall between its adjacent wafers (not above the underlying wafer), and its corresponding subcarriers, and will reach the debris Before the disc supported by the subcarrier below, it is intercepted by the debris collection board in time. In order to maximize the collection of falling debris, the debris collection surface extends at least to the entire area below the installed subcarriers, preferably over the area, such as over 10 cm. In addition, to ensure All debris visible and invisible to the naked eye is intercepted, and the debris collection plate preferably has a closed or continuous debris collection surface. In addition, to prevent the collected debris from slipping off the debris collection plate, each panel is preferably substantially perpendicular to the longitudinally extending members of the stent.

The use of subcarriers also reduces the number of wafer transfer operations that cause the wafer to be in contact with the end effector for wafer transfer between different vertical furnace devices. This in turn reduces the risk of wafer fragmentation during operation. Since wafer shards will again fall from the bottom of the subcarrier without affecting adjacent wafers, any wafer that is damaged during subcarrier loading and unloading is less likely to damage other wafers.

The above and other features and advantages of the invention are more fully understood from the following detailed description of the invention.

1 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a boat assembly in schematic form in accordance with the present invention. The boat boat package 1 program is used with a batch vertical furnace, shown with a conventional base 2 support, the latter consisting of multiple heat shields 4. The boat pack 1 described above has a bracket 10 and a plurality of subcarriers 20 that are removably suspended within the bracket 10. As shown in Figure 2, the bracket 10 is also supported by the base 2, but without the subcarriers 30; the loaded subcarriers 20 are shown separately in Figures 3A-B. Referring now to these illustrations, the construction of the boat package 1 is illustrated in general terms in accordance with the present invention.

In particular, please refer to Figure 2. The bracket 10 of the boat pack 1 may include one or more extension members, the rod members 12 that are parallel to each other, generally extending in a substantially vertical direction in use. All rods 12 are of equal height or length. The stent 10 embodiment shown in Figure 1 includes three rod members 12: two opposing side bars 12a on the front side of the holder 10 (the subcarrier 20 may be inserted into or removed from the holder 10), and one located on the rear side of the holder 10. Back bar 12b. However, we anticipate that other embodiments of the stent 10 may include fewer or more rods 12. This is because at its lower and/or upper ends, the bars 12 may be interconnected by respective bottom and/or top plates. In the embodiment of FIG. 1, the bars 12 are only interconnected by the bottom plate 18. Herein, the range in which the rod 12a is spaced is referred to as the width; and perpendicular to the width, the back rod 12b is displaced therein, and the range associated with the two side rods 12a is referred to as depth. When the subcarriers 20 are characterized below, these names of the relevant size ranges are still used for understanding.

We may also provide a plurality of subcarrier mounting devices 14 along the length of the member 12 to define a plurality of spaced apart subcarrier mounting locations 16. For ease or ease of installation of the subcarriers 30, the subcarrier mounting device 14 may carry any convenient structural features such as grooves, indentations, bulges, bumps, handles, clamps, indicia, and the like. In the embodiment of FIG. 1, subcarrier mounting device 14 is formed by a recess in rod 12. Each rod 12 is equipped with two series of means 14, 14' recesses. The series labeled 14 is generally identical to the series labeled 14', but is systematically replaced along the length of the member 12 associated with the latter. The 14 series recesses are primarily configured for use with the subcarriers 20 described above, while the 14' series is Mainly used in combination with alternative subcarriers, the latter design is different, not shown in the figure. To provide a more detailed description of the structure of the recess 14, we provide a reference to the 14 series; of course, if modified slightly, it also applies to the 14' series. The two side bars 12a are identical and, after being arranged, all the grooves 14a are just opposite each other. The back bar 12b is also equipped with a plurality of regularly spaced 14b grooves. Each groove 14b on the back bar 12b is associated with a pair of 14a grooves, each of which has a 14a groove thereon, and the groove 14b on the back bar 12b has been associated with the pair or side The length of the back bar 12b associated with the 14a groove on the rod 12a is replaced upward. It will be apparent that the grooves 14a, b are primarily used to house the subcarriers 20, as will be explained in more detail below.

The stent 10 may also further include one or more debris collection plates 20. The debris collection plate 20 is supportively attached to one or more of the bars 12 to extend in a direction perpendicular thereto. In addition, the debris collection plate 20 may also be coupled to a certain orientation between every two adjacent subcarrier mounting locations 16 on the member 12, and such that each two adjacent subcarrier mounting locations 16 are at least one debris collection plate. 20 separated. The debris collection plate 20 that extends below the respective subcarrier mounting location 16 is referred to as a debris collection plate 20 associated with the mounting location 16.

In principle, the debris collection plate 20 can be of any suitable shape, such as an ellipse or a polygon, but we typically use a square. The size of the debris collection plate 20, and in particular the size of the debris collection area 22 formed on the upper surface of the debris collection plate 20, is often related to the size of the subcarrier 30 and the wafer 40 it contains. When the subcarrier 30 is mounted in the subcarrier mounting position 16 of the bracket 10, the debris collection plate 20 associated with the holding position 16 is delayed. Extending below the installed subcarrier 30, the area spanned is at least the area occupied by one subcarrier. In this case, the "footprint" of the subcarrier 30 refers to the projected area of the ground plane (here, the plane in which the associated debris collecting plate 20 is located) for describing the maximum width and depth size of the corresponding subcarrier 30. Since the wafer 40 supported by the subcarrier 30 may extend beyond the footprint of the empty subcarrier 30, as clearly shown in FIG. 1, the debris collection plate 20 associated with the subcarrier mounting location 16 is likely to extend and span. The footprint of the subcarrier 30 has been loaded, that is, at least across the sum of the associated subcarrier 30 and wafer 40 footprint.

As shown in FIG. 1, the currently provided boat package 1 can be configured to be specifically adapted to support a square wafer 40. In order to be able to perform dense vertical wafer packaging in this configuration, the spacing d between any two adjacent debris collection plates 20 can be selected to be slightly larger than the square wafer side length (just enabling the subcarrier 30 to support multiple crystals) The circle 40 is placed between it but not in contact with the debris collection plate 20). Furthermore, in order to efficiently collect debris, the depth of the debris collection plate is preferably slightly deeper than the vertical distance d between adjacent debris collection plates 20. That is, if the subcarrier 30 is disposed on a substantially vertical plane for supporting the substrate 40, the plane extends in the first direction perpendicular to the vertical direction, then in the first direction just mentioned The depth of the debris collection plate 20 measured is slightly deeper than the distance d between two adjacent debris collection plates 20.

Now, focus on Figure 3A-B, which illustrates subcarriers 30 loaded with vertically spaced, horizontally spaced wafers 40. Subcarrier 30 includes Two side plates 32 that are parallel but spaced apart. The two side panels 32 are identical, face to face, and are typically smaller in size than the wafer 40 supported by the subcarriers 30. The side panels 32 are typically interconnected by a plurality of mutually parallel support bars 34, 36 that define a bottom support bar member 34 and a back support bar member 36 for the wafer 40 to be placed/received. Preferably, the number and size of the support members 34, 36 are such that the bottom and back of the subcarrier 30 are generally open. Thus, the fragments of the broken wafer will fall from the subcarrier 30 and facilitate the looping of the process gas through the subcarrier 30 and the wafer 40. The support bars 34, 36 may have equally spaced gaps (not shown) for defining the wafer holding position of the subcarriers 30. At least one of the side panels 32 carries one or more subcarrier placement devices 38 that are configured for use with the subcarrier mounting device 14 within the bracket 10. In the above embodiment of the boat pack 1, the subcarrier mounting device 14 of the bracket 10 is defined by the recesses 14a, 14b, and the subcarrier placement means 38 on the side panel 32 may have an outwardly projecting portion of the size just right. One of the grooves 14a on the side bar 12a described above is suitable. Of course, if the vice-carrier mounting device 14a of the bracket 10 is limited by one or more protruding portions, the sub-carrier placement device 38 on the bracket side panel may be correspondingly recessed for receiving the one or more protruding portions. Limited.

As shown in FIG. 1, the subcarrier 30 loaded with the wafer 40 may hover at the subcarrier mounting location 16 of the cradle 10. The back wafer support member 36 may be caught on the recess 14b of the back bar 12b, while the protruding portion 38 on the side plate 32 slides into the groove of the corresponding side bar 12a. Within 14a, the subcarriers 30 surrounding the support bars 36 are prevented from tilting. Once in the cradle 10, any broken fragments of the wafer 40 supported by the subcarriers 30 will fall from the subcarriers and be caught by the debris collection plate 20 extending below it, thereby avoiding the support of the lower subcarrier 30. Wafer 40 is damaged.

While the illustrative embodiments of the invention have been described above, and in part related to the drawings, the invention is obviously not limited to the embodiments. Therefore, any difference from the above embodiments is normal, and the latter may also be subject to change due to the influence of some inventions, study drawings, examples, and additional patent applicants who are skilled in the practice (above). Throughout the specification, when referring to "an embodiment" or "an embodiment", it is meant that a feature, structure, or characteristic relating to the embodiment is present in one or more embodiments of the invention. . Therefore, the term "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" when used in the specification does not necessarily refer to the same embodiment. In addition, it is noted that the specific features, structures, or characteristics of one or more embodiments may be combined in any suitable manner to form new, non-expressed embodiments.

1‧‧‧Crystal package

2‧‧‧Base

4‧‧‧ Thermal insulation board

10‧‧‧ bracket

12‧‧‧ bracket rods

12a, b‧‧‧ side bars (a) and back bars (b)

14‧‧‧Subcarrier mounting device

14a, b‧‧‧First set of subcarrier mounting device grooves on the side bars (a) and back bars (b)

14a’, b’‧‧‧ The second set of subcarrier mounting devices on the side bars (a) and the grooves on the back bar (b)

16‧‧‧Subcarrier installation location

18‧‧‧floor

20‧‧‧Shard collection board

22‧‧‧Shard collection area

30‧‧‧Subcarrier

32‧‧‧ side panels

34‧‧‧Bottom wafer support rod

36‧‧‧Back wafer support rods

38‧‧‧Subcarrier mounting device protrusion/outward protrusion

40‧‧‧ wafer

1 is a perspective view of an exemplary embodiment of a wafer boat package in accordance with the present invention, including a bracket that can vertically align and suspend a plurality of subcarriers; and FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the boat boat package shown in FIG. Figure 3A is a perspective view of the boat assembly shown in Figure 1 loaded into subcarriers Front view; FIG. 3B is a perspective rear view of the loaded subcarrier shown in FIG. 3A.

1‧‧‧Crystal package

2‧‧‧Base

4‧‧‧ Thermal insulation board

10‧‧‧ bracket

20‧‧‧Shard collection board

30‧‧‧Subcarrier

40‧‧‧ wafer

Claims (7)

A boat assembly (1) comprising: - a bracket (10) comprising: - at least one substantially vertical extension member (12), the plurality of spaced apart positions defining a plurality of subcarrier mounting locations (16) at least one subcarrier mounting device (14) is provided at each location; - one or more debris collection plates (20) connected to one or more of the aforementioned members (12), both substantially vertical And each of the two adjacent subcarrier mounting locations (16) is provided with a debris collection plate (20); - a plurality of subcarriers (30), each configured to support a plurality of substantially vertical, horizontal partitions Open planar substrates (40), and each of which can be detachably mounted to the subcarrier mounting location (16) of the bracket (10) by a respective subcarrier mounting device (14); at each debris collection plate ( 20) When the subcarriers (30) are mounted on the corresponding subcarrier mounting position (16) on the bracket (10), each of the debris collection plates occupies a debris collection area (22), which extends to the corresponding Below the subcarrier (30) installed in the subcarrier mounting position (16), the area spanned at least one area occupied by the subcarrier . In the boat package (1) of claim 1, the depth of the debris collection plate (20) is equal to or slightly larger than the vertical distance ( d ) between adjacent debris collection plates. As with the boat package described in claim 1 or 2, each of the debris collection plates is generally square. The boat as described in any one of claims 1 to 3 The package wherein the debris collection area (22) on the aforementioned debris collection plate (20) is a closed area. The wafer boat package of any of claims 1 to 4, wherein each subcarrier (30) comprises two spaced apart side plates (32) which are typically supported by mutually parallel wafers The bars (34, 36) are interconnected. The wafer boat package of any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein a subcarrier mounting device (14) on the bracket (10) has one of the following structural features: one or more bars ( 12) having a groove thereon, and one or more rod members (12) having protrusions thereon; each subcarrier (30) having a corresponding structure of the above-mentioned grooves and protrusions, and mounting with the aforementioned subcarriers The device (14) collectively plays a supporting role. The wafer boat package of any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein each subcarrier (30) supports a plurality of substantially vertical, horizontally spaced planar substrates (40), wherein each The subcarriers (30) are all detachably mounted on the subcarrier mounting location (16) of the bracket (10), and wherein each of the debris collection plates (20) spans at least the associated subcarriers and bases supported thereby The sum of the land areas.