JPH032228B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a rotary film forming apparatus used for forming films made of various materials in manufacturing processes of various electronic devices.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, evaporation apparatuses have been used in which multiple substrate holders are attached to a rotating frame placed in a vacuum chamber and the evaporation source is rotated around a horizontal axis, and various improvements have been made (for example, Kimiaki
58-45175, JP-A-58-144471, JP-A-58-73768, etc.). A rotary sputtering device is also used in which a substrate is held on the outer periphery of a rotating frame attached to a vertical shaft, and a sputtering target is vertically arranged outside the rotating frame.
All of these rotary film forming apparatuses have the advantage of being able to process an extremely large number of substrates at the same time by arranging multiple substrates in the direction of the rotation axis, making them suitable for mass production. .

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, depending on the type of device, there may be cases where it is necessary to use a mixture of film formation by vapor deposition and film formation by sputtering. For example, a thin film EL element, which has recently attracted attention as a flat thin display device, generally has a basic structure in which a first dielectric layer, an EL light emitting layer, and a second dielectric layer are laminated between a transparent electrode and a back electrode. 100 between both electrodes.
Apply a relatively high AC voltage of ~200V to emit light. For this reason, the dielectric layer is usually formed by sputtering in order to reduce defects in the film and increase the withstand voltage. On the other hand, for the EL light-emitting layer, a vapor deposition method is mainly used to obtain high luminance.

In such cases, conventionally, after forming the first dielectric layer using a sputtering device, the substrate is transferred to a vapor deposition device to form an EL light emitting layer, and then transferred to a sputtering device again to form a second dielectric layer. This results in the formation of a film, which necessitates a cumbersome transfer procedure. On the other hand, the substrate is exposed to the atmosphere each time it is transferred, which increases the risk of contamination of the substrate and the occurrence of fatal defects in the film.

[Means for solving problems]

In order to solve these problems, the present invention provides an evaporation source arrangement section inside the rotation orbit of the substrate, and a sputtering target arrangement section outside the lower part of the vacuum chamber.

Here, a plurality of substrate holders are attached to the rotation frame, and a mechanism is provided for rotating the substrate while always facing the processing surface of the substrate, that is, the surface on which a film is formed, downward. Note that "downward" here does not necessarily mean vertically downward, but it means that the angle between the normal to the processing surface and the vertically downward direction does not exceed 90 degrees.

[Effect]

By installing the necessary evaporation source and sputtering target in advance, film formation by evaporation and film formation by sputtering can be performed continuously in the same vacuum chamber.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 is a side sectional view showing one embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, numeral 1 is a cylindrical vacuum chamber in which the center line of the cylinder is arranged in the horizontal direction, and numeral 2 is a rotating frame arranged within this vacuum chamber 1. The rotating frame 2 is rotated in the direction of arrow A around its rotation center line (not shown) by the rotation transmission roller 3, and the rotating frame 2 is accordingly rotated.
The substrate holder 4 attached to the holder also rotates. In addition,
In this embodiment, the rotation center line of the rotating frame 2 and the vacuum chamber 1 are
The cylinder centerlines of coincide. A resistance heating type evaporation source 6 containing a vapor deposition substance 5 is placed inside the rotating frame 2, and a cathode (target) 7 for sputtering is placed on the lower inner wall of the vacuum chamber 1 outside the rotating frame 2.
A to 7C are arranged. 8A and 8B are shield plates for making the film thickness distribution uniform and preventing contaminants from falling, and 9 is a heater for heating the substrate disposed on the inner wall of the vacuum chamber 1 and on the outer peripheral surface of the shield plate 8B. Reference numeral 10 denotes a film thickness monitor during vapor deposition, which is disposed horizontally shifted so that at least a part thereof is not in the shadow of the substrate holder 4. 11 is an exhaust port provided in the vacuum chamber 1.

In the above configuration, each substrate holder 4 has a substrate 1 attached to it.
2 is attached, and after the vacuum chamber 1 is evacuated, film formation is performed while rotating the rotary frame 2 at, for example, 1 rpm. At this time, in order to prevent contamination due to film-forming materials that come off from the inner wall of the vacuum chamber 1, make sure that the processing surface of the substrate 12 mounted on the substrate holder 4 does not face upward. The angle between the normal and the vertical direction does not exceed 90°.
Conventionally, various ideas have been made for such a configuration (for example, see the above-mentioned publication). In this embodiment, when the substrate holder 4 is at the top of the vacuum chamber 1 where vapor deposition is performed, the substrate 12 is held substantially horizontally downward by gravity, while when it is at the bottom of the vacuum chamber 1 where sputtering is performed, the substrate 12 is held vertically downward in the figure. The structure is such that the processing surface of the substrate 12 is held substantially parallel to and opposed to the inner wall of the vacuum chamber 1 by the omitted guide member. 13 is a driven roller for this purpose. Thereby, the processing surface of the substrate 12 faces the evaporation source 6 in the evaporation region and the cathodes 7A to 7C in the sputtering region, so that film formation can be performed efficiently.

For example, after sequentially forming a first sputtering film using the cathode 7A and a second sputtering film using the cathode 7B, a vapor deposited film is formed using the evaporation source 6, and then a second sputtering film is formed using the cathode 7C. A series of film-forming operations such as forming the sputtering film in step 3 can be performed without breaking the vacuum at all, and devices in which a vapor-deposited film and a sputtering film are laminated, such as the thin-film EL device described above, can be manufactured with high yield. be able to. Moreover, the vacuum chamber 1 is cylindrical and has a depth, and a plurality of substrates 12 are arranged in the depth direction, making it possible to process a large number of substrates at once. Productivity is significantly improved because there is no need to transfer the substrate or perform vacuum evacuation every time there is a change from sputtering to evaporation or from evaporation to sputtering.

In the illustrated embodiment, there is one evaporation source, but two
By arranging two or more evaporation sources side by side, two or more types of evaporation films can be formed in a series of film forming steps. In addition, as an evaporation source, not only the resistance heating method mentioned above, but also
Electron beam heating method or induction heating method may be used,
Further, it is also possible to arrange a high frequency coil 14 as shown in the figure and perform film formation by an activated reaction vapor deposition method or an ion plating method. The coil 14 can be easily removed and can be left out if not needed.

Further, although a case has been described in which three types of films are sequentially formed using the three cathodes 7A, 7B, and 7C separately, a plurality of these cathodes may be used simultaneously. For example, by making the cathodes 7A to 7C all of the same material and using them simultaneously, the film forming time can be shortened. Further, by simultaneously using the cathodes 7A to 7C made of different materials, a film structure in which three types of thin films are alternately laminated in the order in which they are arranged with respect to the rotational direction of the rotating frame 2 can be obtained. Of course, the number of cathodes is not limited to three, and may be determined in consideration of the purpose of use and the characteristics of the entire device. FIG. 2 is an example of this. Since a simple suspended substrate holder 4' is used, one cathode 7 is placed only at the bottom, where the processing surface of the substrate 12 and the inner wall of the vacuum chamber 1 directly face each other. ing.

Also, the type (method) of sputtering cathode
is not limited at all. A conventional magnetron cathode, a magnetron cathode with a thermionic emission source, or a cathode without a magnet may be selected as desired.

Furthermore, the heater 9 for heating the substrate may be a well-known heater such as a sheath heater made of a nichrome wire coated with a heat-resistant material or a halogen lamp, and may be appropriately selected and arranged, and its position is not limited to the illustrated example.

Further, the film thickness monitor 10 may be of any type, such as one using a crystal resonator or an optical type. It should be noted that a monitor was not provided for sputtering because the film thickness can be precisely controlled by input power and time.

The shield plates 8A and 8B are also not limited to the illustrated arrangement. Depending on the case, each cathode 7A,
In order to prevent interference between 7B and 7C, a shield plate may be provided between them, or a shutter may be provided and the shutter may be closed when not in use.

In addition, in the above-mentioned embodiments, the rotating frame 2
Although they are arranged coaxially in the vacuum chamber 1, they do not necessarily have to be coaxial, nor do the vacuum chambers 1 necessarily have a cylindrical shape.

In order to create the thin film EL device described above using the film forming apparatus according to the present invention, first a first dielectric layer (for example, Ta ₂ O ₅ ) is formed by sputtering, and then ZnS is formed as a base material. A second dielectric layer (e.g.
Ta ₂ O ₅ ) may be formed by a sputtering method. In this case, ZnS
After forming a layer, it is desirable to anneal the substrate at, for example, 400° C. for about one hour, but by making the capacity of the substrate heating heater 9 sufficiently large, such substrate annealing can also be performed.
The film forming process can be performed continuously in the same vacuum chamber without breaking the vacuum.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, by arranging the evaporation source inside the rotation orbit of the substrate in the vacuum chamber and arranging the sputtering target outside, the evaporated film and the sputtered film can be mixed. The laminated film can be formed continuously without being exposed to the atmosphere during the process, and high-quality thin film products can be manufactured with high productivity and high yield.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side sectional view showing one embodiment of the invention, and FIG. 2 is a side sectional view showing another embodiment of the invention. 1... Vacuum chamber, 2... Rotating frame, 4, 4'... Substrate holder, 6... Evaporation source, 7, 7A to 7C...
Cathode (target) for sputtering.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 A rotary structure in which multiple substrate holders are attached to a rotating frame placed in a vacuum chamber, and the substrates held in the substrate holders are rotated around the rotational center line of the rotating frame while always facing downward to be processed. In the film apparatus, an evaporation source arrangement part for heating and evaporating the vapor deposition material is provided inside the rotation orbit of the substrate, and
A rotary film forming apparatus characterized in that a sputtering target placement section is provided outside the rotating orbit and below the vacuum chamber.