Polishing cleaning mechanism, substrate processing apparatus, and substrate processing method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10328546-B2
Application number	US-201715499402-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 27, 2017
Priority date	Nov 13, 2013
Publication date	Jun 25, 2019
Grant date	Jun 25, 2019

Abstract

There is disclosed a polishing cleaning mechanism configured to be in contact with a rear surface of a substrate which is held in a substrate holding unit for holding the rear surface of the substrate and perform a polishing process and a cleaning process on the rear surface of the substrate, including a cleaning member configured to clean the rear surface of the substrate, a polishing member configured to polish the rear surface of the substrate, and a support member configured to support the polishing member and the cleaning member to face the rear surface of the substrate held in the substrate holding unit, wherein a surface of the polishing member facing the substrate and a surface of the cleaning member facing the substrate differ in relative height from each other.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A polishing cleaning mechanism configured to be in contact with a part of a rear surface of a substrate which is held in a substrate holding unit for holding the rear surface of the substrate and perform a polishing process and a cleaning process on the rear surface of the substrate, comprising:
an annular polishing member configured to polish the rear surface of the substrate;
a cleaning member configured to clean the rear surface of the substrate; and
a support member configured to support the polishing member and the cleaning member to face the rear surface of the substrate held in the substrate holding unit,
wherein a surface of the polishing member facing the substrate and a surface of the cleaning member facing the substrate have different heights from each other;
wherein the cleaning member includes a plurality of fan-shaped members, and the fan-shaped members are disposed inside the polishing member to be concentric with the polishing member; and
wherein a surface area of the polishing cleaning mechanism facing the substrate is smaller than a surface area of the substrate.

2. The mechanism of claim 1 , wherein the cleaning member is made of a flexible material, and
wherein the surface of the cleaning member facing the substrate protrudes beyond the surface of the polishing member facing the substrate.

3. The mechanism of claim 1 , wherein a height difference between the surface of the polishing member facing the substrate and the surface of the cleaning member facing the substrate is adjustable.

4. The mechanism of claim 1 , wherein an elevator mechanism configured to move the cleaning member up and down is located between the support member and the cleaning member.

5. A substrate processing apparatus provided with the polishing cleaning mechanism of claim 2 and configured to perform the polishing process and the cleaning process on the rear surface of the substrate held in the substrate holding unit for holding the rear surface of the substrate, comprising:
a moving mechanism configured to relatively move the support member and the substrate held in the substrate holding unit; and
a control unit configured to control the moving mechanism such that a height difference between the surface of the cleaning member facing the substrate and the surface of the polishing member facing the substrate is adjusted by relatively moving the support member and the substrate held in the substrate holding unit with the moving mechanism and pressing the cleaning member against the substrate to crush the cleaning member.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein a load measuring instrument configured to measure a load is installed between the support member and the cleaning member, and
wherein the control unit is configured to, based on a measurement result of the load measuring instrument, control the moving mechanism to adjust a load by which the cleaning member is pressed against the substrate.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the control unit is configured to, based on a result of inspection of the rear surface of the substrate conducted in advance, select a portion of the rear surface of the substrate to be subjected to at least one of the polishing process and the cleaning process and control the moving mechanism to selectively perform at least one of the polishing process and the cleaning process on the selected portion.

8. A substrate processing method for, using the polishing cleaning mechanism of claim 1 , performing the polishing process and the cleaning process on the rear surface of the substrate held in the substrate holding unit for holding the rear surface of the substrate, comprising:
performing the polishing process by bringing the polishing member into contact with the rear surface of the substrate while a height of a surface of the polishing member facing the substrate is made equal to or higher than a height of a surface of the cleaning member facing the substrate; and
performing the cleaning process by bringing only the cleaning member into contact with the rear surface of the substrate while the height of the surface of the polishing member facing the substrate is made lower than the height of the surface of the cleaning member facing the substrate.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein a portion of the rear surface of the substrate to be subjected to at least one of the polishing process and the cleaning process is selected based on a result of inspection of the rear surface of the substrate conducted in advance, and at least one of the polishing process and the cleaning process is selectively performed on the selected portion.

10. The mechanism of claim 1 , wherein an elevator mechanism configured to move the polishing member up and down is located between the support member and the polishing member.

Assignees

• Tokyo Electron Ltd

Inventors

• Kubo Akihiro
• Fukuda Masahiro
• Yamamoto Taro
• Yada Kenji
• Enomoto Masashi
• Nakashima Noboru

Classifications

• H10P72/0604

  Process monitoring, e.g. flow or thickness monitoring · CPC title

• H10P72/0412

  using mainly scrubbing means, e.g. brushes · CPC title

• H10P70/56

  Cleaning of wafer backside · CPC title

• H10P52/402

  of semiconductor materials · CPC title

• B24B25/00

  Grinding machines of universal type · CPC title