Drying system with integrated substrate alignment stage

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2022282918-A1
Application number	US-202217681671-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Feb 25, 2022
Priority date	Mar 3, 2021
Publication date	Sep 8, 2022
Grant date	—

Abstract

A substrate cleaning and drying system includes a cleaning station, a drying station positioned adjacent the cleaning station, a cleaner robot to transfer a substrate from the cleaning station to the drying station, an aligner stage adjacent to the drying station, a robot arm rotatable between a substantially vertical first position for receiving the substrate from the drying station and a substantially horizontal second position for releasing the substrate onto the aligner stage, and a factory interface robot to transfer a substrate from the aligner stage into a factory interface module while in a horizontal orientation. The aligner stage includes a rotatable support to hold the substrate in a substantially horizontal orientation and to rotate the substrate to a desired orientation.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A substrate drying system for use in a CMP cleaner, the drying system comprising:
a drying station having a drier; an aligner stage adjacent to the drying station, the aligner stage including a rotatable support to hold a substrate in a substantially horizontal position and to rotate the substrate to a desired orientation; and a robot arm movable between a first position above the drier and a second position for releasing substrates onto the rotatable support of the aligner stage with the substrate in a generally horizontal orientation.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the drying stage is a Marangoni vapor drying stage.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the robot arm includes fingers adjustable to grip edges of the wafers during rotation between the first position and the second position.

4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the first position is a substantially vertical position for receiving wafers in a substantially vertical orientation from the drying station, and the second position is a substantially horizontal position for releasing wafers in a substantially horizontal orientation onto the aligner stage.

5 . The system of claim 4 , wherein the aligner stage includes a pedestal rotatable about a vertical axis and coupleable to lower surfaces of wafers on the aligner stage, and an alignment sensor for detecting rotational fiducial marks on the wafers.

6 . The system of claim 4 , wherein the a robot arm is movable between a third position inside the drier and the first position above the drier.

7 . The system of claim 6 , comprising a cleaner robot configured to deliver the substrate into the drier.

8 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the drying station includes a support and the cleaner robot is configured to place the substrate on the support in the drying station.

9 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the cleaner robot is configured to hand off the substrate to the robot arm in the drier.

10 . The system of claim 7 , comprising a drying robot to raise the substrate from a third position inside the drier to the first position and to hand-off the substrate to the robot arm at the first position.

11 . The system of claim 1 , comprising a drying robot to raise the substrate from a third position inside the drier to the first position and to hand-off the substrate to the robot arm at the first position.

12 . The system of claim 11 , wherein the drier robot is configured to raise a first substrate from the third position simultaneously with the aligner stage aligning a second substrate.

13 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the aligner stage is configured to align a first substrate simultaneously with the drying station drying a second substrate.

14 . A method, comprising:
drying a first wafer with a vertical drying process; tilting the dried first wafer to a horizontal orientation; and aligning the first wafer about a vertical axis while simultaneously drying a second wafer with the vertical drying process.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the vertical drying process is a Marangoni drying process.

16 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the tilting of the dried first wafer includes gripping the dried first wafer in a vertical orientation, rotating the gripped first wafer to the horizontal orientation, and releasing the first wafer onto a stage for the aligning.

17 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the aligning of the wafer includes detecting a fiducial mark on the wafer.

18 . The method of claim 17 , wherein aligning of the wafer includes stopping the rotating upon the detecting of the fiducial mark.

19 . The method of claim 17 , wherein aligning of the wafer comprises further rotating the substrate by a selected skew angle upon detecting the fiducial mark and then stopping the rotating.

Assignees

• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Wong Justin Ho Kuen

Classifications

• H10P72/7602

  the wafers being placed on a robot blade or gripped by a gripper for conveyance · CPC title

• H10P72/0606

  Position monitoring, e.g. misposition detection or presence detection · CPC title

• H10P72/50

  for positioning, orientation or alignment · CPC title

• H10P72/0416 Primary

  with the semiconductor substrates being dipped in baths or vessels · CPC title

• H10P72/3308

  Vertical transfer of a single workpiece · CPC title