JPS6139729B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a processing apparatus for coating and baking a photoresist film on a semiconductor wafer, and provides an apparatus that can automatically process even different lots of semiconductor wafers.

In the manufacturing process of semiconductor devices, there is a process of forming a photoresist film. Conventionally, this process has been carried out by manually suctioning and fixing a semiconductor wafer onto a spinner, dropping photoresist onto the center thereof, and then rotating the spinner to form a thin photoresist film on the semiconductor wafer.

However, the processing method described above requires a worker to place each semiconductor wafer on the spinner one by one using tweezers and remove it one by one, which has the drawback of individual differences among workers, mistakes, and contamination. Ta. In addition, there were other problems, such as the fact that it required a lot of time to process each individual semiconductor wafer.

On the other hand, it appears that equipment has been developed that automatically processes the photoresist film coating and baking processes continuously, but this equipment is unable to process different lots of semiconductor wafers continuously. Because of this problem, we cannot expect any major process improvements.

The present invention has been achieved in order to eliminate the drawbacks of the prior art. According to the present invention, there is a loader section that supports a plurality of jigs for storing semiconductor wafers and sequentially feeds the semiconductor wafers, a processing section like a baking oven following the loader section, and a plurality of jigs provided at the end of the processing section. An unloader section having a jig for storing semiconductor wafers is provided, and the supply of semiconductor wafers from the loader section and the storage of semiconductor wafers into the jig of the unloader section are automatically managed by a computer. Ru.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an external perspective view showing the schematic structure of the device according to the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a loader section, in which a plurality of jigs 4 are supported on a wafer push-out section 3 provided on a main operation panel 2, each supporting a semiconductor wafer 5.

Reference numeral 6 denotes a spinner section, and above this, an open/close air bearing chute 7, a coating head 8 (spinner), and a wafer sorting chute 9 are provided.

Reference numeral 10 denotes a baking section, in which a plurality of infrared heaters and reflection plates 11 are arranged.

Reference numeral 12 denotes an unloader section, and a rotary plate 13 is provided at the center of the upper part of the unloader section, and a jig 4' can be stored in this.

Figure 2 is a plan view of the entire device shown in Figure 1.
A pusher 14 is provided at the center of the wafer extrusion section 3, and a pusher 14 is provided at the center of the wafer extrusion section 3, and the wafer 5 accommodated in the jig 4 is
It is configured to send out one sheet at a time.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the mechanism of the loader section, in which the rotary plate 15 is rotated by a certain angle by the motor 16 after all the wafers of one jig have been sent out.
Point the new jig toward air bearing 17. A pusher mechanism 19 is provided inside the case 18 above the rotating plate 15, and drives the pusher 14 intermittently.

A jig pitch feeding mechanism 20 is provided at the lower front of the air bearing 17, and is driven by a motor 21 to raise and support the jig 4a to a certain position, and then aligns the wafer with the surface of the air bearing 17. Then, the pusher mechanism 19 is operated and one wafer is pushed out by the pusher 14. In addition, 22 is a wafer presence/absence detection device, 23
Reference numeral 24 and 25 indicate a cartridge presence/absence detection device, and 1 rotation detection devices.

Referring again to FIG. 2, when the pusher 14 is activated and the semiconductor wafer is placed on the air bearing 17, the vacuum stopper 26 temporarily stops the semiconductor wafer thereon, and when there is no semiconductor wafer on the coating head 8, The vacuum stopper 26 is turned off and the semiconductor wafer is fed. The semiconductor wafer sent in is stopped from moving by the stopper 27 and stopped at the position of the coating head 8;
In this state, a vacuum is applied to support the semiconductor wafer on the coating head 8.

After that, rotate the opening/closing air bearing chute 7 as shown by the two-dot chain line, and then press the resist cup 3.
4 is raised, photoresist liquid is discharged from the nozzle, and then the coating head 8 is rotated to apply a photoresist film. When the coating process is completed, the resist cup 34 is lowered to its original position, and the opening/closing air bearing chute 7 is returned to the position shown by the solid line.Then, the vacuum is turned off and the semiconductor is transferred onto the air bearing 7', and the vacuum stopper 28 removes the semiconductor. Temporarily stop the wafer.

Reference numeral 9 denotes a wafer sorting chute, a part of which is provided with a shutter 29, which swings between X and Y directions. When the vacuum stopper 28 is turned off, the semiconductor wafer is transferred upward to the wafer sorting chute 9 and placed on the shutter 29. Along with this, X, Y
After swinging the wafer sorting chute 9 to one of the positions, the shutter 29 is opened and the semiconductor wafers are arranged in two rows on a belt conveyor 30 provided in the baking section 10.

In the baking section 10, the semiconductor wafers are baked by an infrared heater and sent out to the unloader side one after another.The sent out semiconductor wafers are carried by an air bearing 31 and temporarily stopped by a vacuum stopper 32. , is then pushed by the pusher 33 and stored in the groove of a jig 4' provided on the rotary plate 13. This jig 4' receives an electrical signal as in the device shown in FIG. It is configured to move up and down according to the

The embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that a plurality of jigs are loaded into the unloader section instead of one jig, and therefore, even jigs from different types of lots can be continuously supplied. There are characteristics.

It is necessary to reproduce the arrangement order of the semiconductor wafers sent out from the loader section in the unloader section, and this is performed by address control using a microcomputer for each semiconductor wafer.

That is, a fourth memory is stored in the RAM (random access memory) of a microcomputer (not shown).
As shown in the figure, it has two address reference registers named loader address and unloader address, and also has a place to store the presence or absence of a wafer in the jig, which is called a wafer table.

The computer increments the loader address every time the jig is moved on the loader side, and if there is a wafer, it will be "1", and if there is no wafer, it will be "0".
is written to the wafer table address specified by the loader address.

Also, when a wafer to be stored comes to the unloader side, the computer reads the contents of the wafer table specified by the unloader address, and if the content is "1", stores the wafer in the groove of the jig. . If it is "0", the unloader address is incremented until "1" can be read out, and at the same time the jig is moved one pitch at a time, and the wafer is stored at the cartridge position where "1" can be read out.

After all, the arrangement of the wafers loaded on the loader side is reproduced on the unloader side by the operations on the loader side and the unloader side.

Since the present invention is implemented as described above, it has the following effects.

(b) A large number of jigs are loaded on the loader side and the unloader side, and a spinner section and a bake section are provided between the two for continuous processing, making the process continuous and reducing the work involved in transporting between operations. It is possible to prevent operator errors and contamination during operation, and improve the quality of semiconductor devices.

(b) The apparatus manufactured by the present inventor can be loaded with eight jigs and can continuously process 200 semiconductor wafers.

For example, the processing time for one semiconductor wafer is
Assuming 40 seconds and 25 wafers stored in one jig, eight jigs can be operated unattended for 2 hours.

(c) Continuous processing of different lots of semiconductor wafers is possible.

Since address control is performed, processed wafers are automatically stored in the storage jig on the unloader side by lot (by jig). Therefore, there is no contamination between lots, and different lots can be processed continuously.

The present invention can be effectively used in photoresist film coating and development steps, or mask coating and development steps.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is an external view showing the schematic structure of a semiconductor wafer photoresist film processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a plan view showing the structure of the main part, and Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of the mechanism of the loader section. , FIG. 4 is a wafer table. 1...Loader section, 2...Main operation panel,
3... Extrusion section, 4... Jig, 5... Semiconductor wafer, 6... Spinner section, 7... Opening/closing air bearing chute, 8... Coating head, 9...
Wafer sorting shoot, 10...Bake section, 1
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Infrared heater and reflector, 12... Unloader section, 13... Rotating plate, 14... Pusher, 15... Rotating plate, 16... Motor, 17...
...Air bearing, 18...Case, 19...
Pusher mechanism, 20... Jig pitch feeding mechanism, 2
1...Motor, 22...Wafer presence/absence detection device, 23...Cartridge presence/absence detection device, 24,
25... Single rotation detection device, 26... Vacuum stopper, 27... Stopper, 28... Vacuum stopper, 29... Shutter, 30... Belt conveyor, 31... Air bearing, 32... Vacuum stopper, 33... ...Pushiya, 34...Resist Cup.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A loader section having a plurality of storage jigs for storing semiconductor wafers to be processed for each lot, a semiconductor wafer processing section, and a plurality of storages for storing processed semiconductor wafers for each lot. an unloader section having storage jigs, and a computer that stores information regarding the presence or absence of a semiconductor wafer corresponding to a semiconductor wafer storage position in each storage jig in the loader section. The loading operation is performed by controlling the loading operation of the semiconductor wafer to be processed in the loader section and the storing operation of the processed semiconductor wafer in the unloader section by the computer using the above information. A semiconductor wafer processing apparatus characterized in that the arrangement state of semiconductor wafers in each storage jig in the unloader section is reproduced in each storage jig in the unloader section.