Automatic determination method of inspection region for substrate holding state abnormality inspection and substrate processing system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10242459-B2
Application number	US-201715432187-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 14, 2017
Priority date	Feb 17, 2016
Publication date	Mar 26, 2019
Grant date	Mar 26, 2019

Abstract

With regard to an inspection region for inspecting abnormality of a holding state of the substrate in an image of the substrate holding unit, (1) an upper end surface of the substrate being normally held by the substrate holding unit is confirmed, (2) based on a position of the upper end surface of the substrate that has been confirmed, a position of the inspection region in a vertical direction is determined, and (3) for a candidate of the inspection region of which the position in the vertical direction has been determined, density thereof at a rotation start time of the substrate holding unit is obtained, a horizontal position of the inspection region is determined based on a difference image integrated value, which is an integrated value of a difference absolute value with density of the same region in an initial state of the substrate holding unit.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An automatic determination method of an inspection region for abnormality inspection of a substrate holding state in a substrate processing system including:
a substrate holding unit configured to rotate a substrate being held in a substantially horizontal attitude;
a processing control unit configured to add predetermined processing to the substrate in a state where the substrate holding unit is rotated; and
an abnormality inspection unit configured to inspect abnormality of a holding state of the substrate by the substrate holding unit,
the abnormality inspection unit including:
an imaging unit configured to acquire a first image by photographing the substrate being held by the substrate holding unit from a horizontal direction;
a cut out unit configured to cut out, from the first image, a second image corresponding to the inspection region positioned above the substrate being properly held by the substrate holding unit; and
a determination unit configured to obtain a feature quantity indicating the holding state of the substrate by the substrate holding unit and to perform abnormality determination of the holding state based on the feature quantity on the second image,
the automatic determination method comprising:
upper end surface confirming in which an upper end surface of the substrate being normally held by the substrate holding unit is confirmed in the first image;
vertical position determining in which a position of the inspection region in a vertical direction is determined based on a position of the upper end surface of the substrate in the first image having been confirmed in the upper end surface confirming; and
horizontal position determining in which, for a candidate of the inspection region for which the position in the vertical direction has been determined, density at a rotation start time of the substrate holding unit is obtained, a difference image integrated value being an integrated value of a difference absolute value with density of the same region in an initial state of the substrate holding unit is obtained, and a horizontal position of the inspection region is determined based on the difference image integrated value having been obtained.

2. The automatic determination method of the inspection region for the abnormality inspection of the substrate holding state according to claim 1 , wherein
in the horizontal position determining, the horizontal position of the inspection region is a position at which the difference image integrated value is the minimum.

3. The automatic determination method of the inspection region for the abnormality inspection of the substrate holding state according to claim 1 , wherein
in the upper end surface confirming, the position of the upper end surface of the substrate is confirmed to a position at which a difference value of density between a pixel at a predetermined horizontal position of the first image and an adjacent pixel related to the vertical direction is equal to or greater than a predetermined multiple of a standard deviation of density in each pixel related to the vertical direction.

4. The automatic determination method of the inspection region for the abnormality inspection of the substrate holding state according to claim 1 , wherein
the feature quantity is determined based on the difference image integrated value, and
a threshold of the feature quantity used for the abnormality determination of the holding state of the substrate is determined based on an average value and a standard deviation of the difference image integrated value in the inspection region of the first image during rotation of the substrate holding unit.

5. The automatic determination method of the inspection region for the abnormality inspection of the substrate holding state according to claim 1 , wherein
the first image at the rotation start time of the substrate holding unit is an image in which the substrate being held by the substrate holding unit is photographed from the horizontal direction by the imaging unit at a point of time when the difference image integrated value within a predetermined rotation start determination region exceeds a predetermined second threshold.

6. The automatic determination method of the inspection region for the abnormality inspection of the substrate holding state according to claim 5 , wherein
a position of the rotation start determination region is determined to a position at which the difference image integrated value is the maximum in the first image among the plurality of first images photographed for every predetermined period from a stopped state of the substrate holding unit to after a rotation start thereof, the first image being photographed before the first image for which the difference image integrated value is the maximum for the whole first images, and the first image being immediately before the first image in which a change of the difference image integrated value from the previous first image exceeds a predetermined third threshold.

7. The automatic determination method of the inspection region for the abnormality inspection of the substrate holding state according to claim 5 , wherein
the second threshold is determined based on an average value and a standard deviation of the difference image integrated value of the rotation start determination region of the first image during a stop of the substrate holding unit.

8. The automatic determination method of the inspection region for the abnormality inspection of the substrate holding state according to claim 7 , wherein
the second threshold is further determined based on a maximum value of the difference image integrated value of the rotation start determination region of the first image during a stop of the substrate holding unit and a minimum value of the difference image integrated value of the rotation start determination region of the first image at the rotation start time.

9. A substrate processing system comprising:
a substrate holding unit configured to rotate a substrate being held in a substantially horizontal attitude;
a processing control unit configured to add predetermined processing to the substrate in a state where the substrate holding unit is rotated; and
an abnormality inspection unit configured to inspect abnormality of a holding state of the substrate by the substrate holding unit,
the abnormality inspection unit including:
an imaging unit configured to acquire a first image by photographing the substrate being held by the substrate holding unit from a horizontal direction;
a cut out unit configured to cut out, from the first image, a second image corresponding to an inspection region positioned above the substrate being properly held by the substrate holding unit; and
a determination unit configured to obtain a feature quantity indicating the holding state of the substrate by the substrate holding unit and to perform abnormality determination of the holding state based on the feature quantity on the second image,
the substrate processing system further comprising:
an inspection region determination unit configured to determine the inspection region for abnormality inspection of the holding state of the substrate, wherein
the inspection region determination unit includes:
an upper end surface confirmation unit configured to confirm an upper end surface of the substrate being normally held by the substrate holding unit in the first image;
a vertical position determination unit configured to determine a position of the inspection region in a vertical direction based on a position of the upper end surface of the substrate in the first image having been confirmed by the upper end surface confirmation unit; and
a horizont

Assignees

• Screen Holdings Co Ltd

Inventors

• Sano Hiroshi

Classifications

• H10P74/203

  Structural properties, e.g. testing or measuring thicknesses, line widths, warpage, bond strengths or physical defects · CPC title

• H10P72/7624

  characterised by the mechanical construction of the susceptor, stage or support · CPC title

• H10P72/7611

  characterised by edge profile or support profile · CPC title

• H10P72/7608

  characterised by a plurality of separate clamping members, e.g. clamping fingers · CPC title

• H10P72/0616 Primary

  Monitoring of warpages, curvatures, damages, defects or the like · CPC title