JPS6256652B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a vacuum apparatus for forming thin films such as vacuum evaporation, sputtering, dry etching, and plasma CVD.

It has two or more vacuum chambers, a substrate insertion chamber and a thin film forming chamber, and a substrate support on which a plurality of substrates to be processed, such as wafers, are set is placed on a transport mechanism, and the transport mechanism moves inside the thin film forming chamber. In so-called in-line thin film forming vacuum equipment, which forms thin films while or without stopping, although it is possible to indirectly heat a wafer set on a substrate support using a lamp or heater, it is extremely difficult to cool the wafer. It was hot. Therefore, when cooling is required, a load-lock type thin film forming vacuum apparatus has been used in which the substrate support is transported by a transport mechanism and placed on a table in a thin film forming chamber that can be heated and cooled. However, even in this vacuum device, although the substrate support can be heated and cooled by heating the table and cooling with water, the thermal contact between the table and the substrate support is insufficient, so the temperature of the substrate support and the substrate cannot be adjusted to the desired temperature. It was impossible to control.

As mentioned above, due to poor thermal contact between the table and the substrate support, for example, when using a substrate coated with resist for lift-off or when producing a thin film consisting of extremely fine grain boundaries,
Although it was necessary to maintain the substrate temperature at a low temperature during film production, it was difficult to do so with conventional apparatuses having a substrate transport mechanism. On the other hand, it was sometimes necessary to maintain the substrate temperature within a very precise range at a certain temperature higher than room temperature for heat treatment during or after film fabrication, but this was difficult to do with conventional equipment. It was hot.

Accordingly, the present invention aims to provide a thin film forming vacuum apparatus in which the substrate support and the substrate holder can be well heat-treated and the temperature can be controlled.

According to the present invention, there is provided a substrate insertion chamber in which a substrate support on which a substrate to be processed is set is inserted from the outside and placed on a transfer pedestal; a thin film forming chamber having a heated substrate holder and comprising at least one chamber; an isolation valve means provided between the insertion chamber and the thin film forming chamber; a conveying means for conveying the conveying pedestal from the substrate insertion chamber to the thin film forming chamber; and a substrate support conveyed by the conveying means. In the load-lock type thin film forming vacuum apparatus, which has an attachment/detachment means that is attached to the heating/cooled substrate holder and detached after forming a thin film, the substrate support to be conveyed is connected to a spring member and a spring pressing member which are sequentially provided below the periphery of the substrate support. The attachment/detachment means has a member fixed to the heating/cooling board holder and extending downward, and the support release means supports the lower end of the spring pressing member at the lower part of the member. It is configured with a claw member that can be attached and detached,
In the attached state, the attachment/detachment claw member presses the lower end of the spring pressing member upward;
There is obtained a thin film forming vacuum apparatus characterized in that the substrate support body is brought into pressure contact with the heating and cooling substrate holder via the spring member.

Next, the present invention will be explained in detail using the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing the outline of the structure of a load-lock type vapor deposition apparatus which is an embodiment of the present invention. First, the movement of the substrate support will be explained. The substrate support 3 is placed on the substrate support up/down mechanism 2 in the substrate insertion chamber 1, and the main pump 4 is used to evacuate. On the other hand, the vapor deposition chamber 5 is evacuated by the main pump 6, and the isolation valve 7 is opened here. Then, the transport pedestal 8 in the vapor deposition chamber 5, which is a thin film forming chamber, is moved to a predetermined position 8a in the substrate insertion chamber by a rack and pinion type automatic transport mechanism 9.
Note that 10 represents the substrate support,
It doesn't exist at this point.

Next, the substrate support vertical mechanism 2 is lowered to the lower position, and the substrate support 3 is placed on the transport pedestal 8a.
This is represented by the dotted line 3'. Next, the conveying pedestal 8a returns to the predetermined position 8 in the vapor deposition chamber 5 again. At this time, the substrate support is at the position 10 described above. As will be explained in detail later, the heating/cooling substrate holder 11 is lowered to the substrate support 10, the substrate support 10 is attached using the attachment/detachment claw not shown in FIG. Return to position. At this time, the isolation valve 7 is closed, and preparation for evaporation from the evaporation source 12 on the substrate support is completed. All of the above operations are performed automatically. Note that the part 13 indicated by a dotted circle indicates that a spring 14 and a spring retainer 15 are interposed in order downwardly between the peripheral edge of the substrate support 10' and the pedestal 8'. This figure is shown to show the relationship with the explanation of FIG. 2. Note that the spring 14 is in its longest extended state.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the main parts of the device according to the present invention in FIG. 1, A is a support plate (10 in FIG. 1).
A cross section is shown when the is mounted on the heating and cooling board holder 11, B represents the state of the lower part when the heating and cooling board holder 11 is lowered to the lowest position for mounting, and C is surrounded by a dotted circle in B. This shows the part viewed from above. and the same elements as in Figure 1 have the same reference numerals A, B, C.
It is shown with . First, the combination of the substrate support, the spring, and the spring pusher mounted on the substrate support conveyance pedestal 8 is stopped at fixed positions shown at 11B, 14B, and 15B in B, respectively. Therefore, a pawl rotating arm 22 rotatable by a bearing 21 shown in A
24 of the fastener 23 at C.
Place it in position (orientation) a. Furthermore, this fastener 23
Although the pawl 24 rotates, the whole is fixed to the heating/cooling board Nilder 11. and 25A
is a wafer which is a substrate to be processed.

At this point, lower the substrate holder to the position indicated by 11a in B. In this case, the pawl is at the position 24a and is out of the descending path, so it does not prevent the heating and cooling substrate holder 11A from descending. When the heating/cooling substrate holder is lowered to the position shown at 11B in B, the spring 14B is compressed most strongly, as can be seen from the figure.

Next, turn the pawl rotating arm 22 from the pawl position 24a to the position 24b, and move the heating/cooling substrate holder from the position 11B to the position 11A (11 in Fig. 1).
(same as ). Therefore, the hot spring at position 24B is slightly above the spring presser 15B.
(At this time, the spring 14B has been extended to a length of 14A.) After that, the substrate holder 10B is lifted up, and the final arrangement is as shown in A.

In the final state described above, the length of spring 14A is longer than that of spring 14B, but the length of spring 14A is longer than that of spring 14B.
It is more compressed than the spring 14 in the figure. Therefore, the substrate support 10A is heated and cooled by the substrate holder 1.
1A with 50 to 100 times more force than the conventional contact method using the weight of the substrate support 10A itself. Therefore, for example, the heating and cooling substrate holder 11A
When heated to 70°C, in the conventional method that does not use springs, the temperature of the substrate support 10A only rose by 2 to 3°C from the room temperature of 25°C even after 1 hour of contact, whereas in this method 1 hour after contact, the temperature rises by about 30°C from room temperature, and the heating and cooling substrate holder 1
The temperature became almost equal to 1A.

The shield cover 26 shown in FIG. 2A is used to prevent discharge from reaching areas other than the substrate holder when high voltage is applied to the heated and cooled substrate holder 11A. Since there is less discharge at certain points, there are fewer impurities sputtered from there, and there is less concern about contamination of the wafer 25A. In addition, if this wafer 25A is used for lift-off and has a resist coated on it, by cooling the substrate holder by flowing cooling water at about 10°C, the rise in substrate temperature due to spatter etching can be suppressed to the heat resistance limit of the resist. It was possible to maintain the temperature below a certain 80℃.

In the above description, the case where the substrate holder temperature is maintained at approximately 10° C. and approximately 70° C. has been described, but the present invention is not particularly limited to the method of setting the temperature of the substrate holder or the predetermined substrate temperature. For example, the present invention is also effective for maintaining the substrate temperature at the liquid nitrogen temperature by cooling using liquid nitrogen.

As described above, in the present invention, the cooling and heating temperatures of the substrate support can be precisely controlled in a load-lock type thin film forming vacuum apparatus by using the substrate support conveyance and attachment/detachment mechanism. Lift-off vapor deposition, lift-off sputtering, dry etching, etc., in which temperature control is important, can be performed under desired conditions, and therefore high-quality products can be obtained.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing the outline of the configuration of a load-lock type vapor deposition apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the main parts of the apparatus according to the present invention shown in FIG. is a diagram showing a cross section, B is a diagram showing a cross section when installed, and C is a diagram of a part of B seen from above. Explanation of symbols: 1 is the substrate insertion chamber, 2 is the substrate support vertical mechanism, 3 and 3' are the substrate support (before transportation),
4 is the main pump, 5 and 5A are the deposition chambers, 6 is the main pump, 7 is the isolation valve, 8, 8a, 8B, 8C are the conveyor pedestals, 9 is the rack and pinion type conveyor mechanism, 1
0, 10A, 10B are substrate supports (after transportation),
Hereinafter, A, B, and C are omitted, and 11 is a heating/cooling substrate holder, 12 is a deposition source, 14 is a spring, 15 is a spring holder, 22 is a claw rotation arm, 23 is a fastener, and 24
is the pawl of the fastener, 24a and 24b are the 2nd pawl of 24
25 represents the wafer, and 26 represents the shield cover.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A substrate insertion chamber into which a substrate support on which a substrate to be processed is set is inserted from the outside and placed on a transfer pedestal;
a thin film forming chamber including at least one chamber having a heated and cooled substrate holder; isolation valve means provided between the substrate insertion chamber and the thin film forming chamber; A load-lock type thin film forming vacuum apparatus having a transport means for transporting the substrate to a chamber, and an attachment/detachment means for attaching the substrate support transported by the transport means to the heating/cooling substrate holder and removing it after forming a thin film,
The substrate support to be transported is configured as a combination of a spring member and a spring pressing member which are provided in order below the periphery of the substrate support, and the attachment/detachment means is fixed to the heating/cooling substrate holder and extends downward. The structure includes an extended member, and a detachable claw member that supports the lower end of the spring holding member is provided at the lower part of the member. A thin film forming vacuum apparatus, characterized in that a claw member presses the lower end of the spring pressing member upward, and presses the substrate support body against the heating and cooling substrate holder via the spring member.