Substrate processing apparatus, substrate processing method, and computer-readable storage medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8992685-B2
Application number	US-75397810-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 5, 2010
Priority date	Apr 9, 2009
Publication date	Mar 31, 2015
Grant date	Mar 31, 2015

Abstract

In a substrate processing apparatus, a film deposition device and a heat processing device to perform an anneal processing are airtightly connected to a vacuum conveying chamber, and a substrate rotating unit to cause a substrate to rotate around a vertical axis is provided in the vacuum conveying chamber. A control unit is arranged to stop a relative rotation of a plurality of reactive gas supplying units, a separating gas supplying unit and a table by a rotation device in the middle of a film deposition process of the substrate, cause a conveying unit to take out the substrate from a vacuum chamber, and output a control signal that causes a substrate rotating unit to change a direction of the substrate.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A substrate processing apparatus which laminates layers of resultants of at least two kinds of mutually reactive gases and forms a thin film on a surface of a substrate by performing a gas supply cycle to supply sequentially the reactive gases to the surface of the substrate in a vacuum chamber,
the substrate processing apparatus comprising:
a film deposition device to perform a film deposition process of the substrate;
a vacuum conveying chamber airtightly connected to the film deposition device;
a conveying unit disposed in the vacuum conveying chamber to convey the substrate between the film deposition device and the vacuum conveying chamber;
a heat processing device including a processing container airtightly connected to the vacuum conveying chamber and including a substrate mounting base provided therein and a unit to perform heat processing of the substrate on the mounting base;
a substrate rotating unit arranged in the vacuum conveying chamber or the heat processing device to cause the substrate on the conveying unit to rotate around a vertical axis of the substrate and to rotate with respect to the conveying unit; and
a control unit to output a control signal so that a film deposition process of the substrate is carried out,
the film deposition device comprising:
a table arranged in the vacuum chamber;
a plurality of reactive gas supplying units arranged to face an upper surface of the table and mutually separated in a circumferential direction of the table to supply the reactive gases to the surface of the substrate respectively;
a separating gas supplying unit to supply a separating gas;
an isolation area disposed between a plurality of processing areas to which the reactive gases are respectively supplied from the plurality of reactive gas supplying units, the separating gas being supplied from the separating gas supplying unit to the isolation area so that atmospheres of the plurality of processing areas are divided by the separating gas in the isolation area;
a rotation device that rotates to perform a relative rotation between the plurality of reactive gas supplying units and the separating gas supplying unit with respect to the table around a vertical axis of the table;
a substrate mounting area arranged in the table along a direction of rotation of the table so that the substrate located in the substrate mounting area is moved sequentially to the plurality of processing areas and the isolation area by the rotation of the rotation device; and
an evacuation unit to perform evacuation of the inside of the vacuum chamber,
wherein the control unit is configured to
stop the relative rotation by the rotation device in the middle of the film deposition process,
cause the conveying unit to take out the substrate from the vacuum chamber,
output a control signal that causes the substrate rotating unit to change a direction of the substrate with respect to the conveying unit, and
cause the conveying unit to convey the substrate, after the direction of the substrate has changed with respect to the conveying unit, to the film deposition device so that the film deposition process is continued for the substrate.

2. The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the substrate processing apparatus is arranged so that the substrate sequentially passes through the plurality of processing areas and the isolation area by rotation of the table,
the plurality of reactive gas supplying units comprise:
a first reactive gas supplying unit to supply a first reactive gas to the substrate so that the first reactive gas is adsorbed by the substrate;
an auxiliary gas supplying unit to supply to the substrate an auxiliary gas that reacts with the first reactive gas adsorbed by the substrate to generate an intermediate product having a flowability; and
a second reactive gas supplying unit to supply to the substrate a second reactive gas that reacts with the intermediate product to generate a resultant,
the first reactive gas supplying unit, the auxiliary gas supplying unit, and the second reactive gas supplying unit being sequentially disposed at downstream positions of a conveyance opening in a direction of rotation of the table, the conveyance opening being formed to deliver the substrate between the film deposition device and the vacuum conveying chamber, and
the heat processing device is arranged so that the resultant is closely packed by performing the heat processing of the substrate.

3. The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 2 , further comprising a plasma supplying unit disposed between the second reactive gas supplying unit and the conveyance opening in the direction of rotation of the table to supply a plasma to the substrate on the table.

4. The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 2 , further comprising a third reactive gas supplying unit disposed between the first reactive gas supplying unit and the conveyance opening to face the substrate on the table to supply a third reactive gas to the surface of the substrate, so that the third reactive gas is adsorbed by the surface of the substrate and at least one of boron and phosphorus in the third reactive gas is mixed with the resultant.

5. The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the isolation area includes a top surface disposed on both sides of the separating gas supplying unit in the direction of rotation of the rotation device to form a narrow space between the top surface and the table to allow the separating gas from the isolation area to flow into the processing areas through the narrow space.

6. The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising a central part area disposed at a central part of the vacuum chamber to divide the atmospheres of the plurality of the processing areas, the central part area including a discharge hole formed therein to discharge the separating gas from the discharge hole to the substrate mounting surface of the table,
wherein the reactive gases are discharged by the evacuation unit together with the separating gas diffused on both sides of the isolation area and the separating gas discharged from the central part area.

7. The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the control unit is configured to cause the conveying unit to, after taking out the substrate from the vacuum chamber and before conveying the substrate back to the film deposition device,
convey the substrate taken out from the film deposition device to the heat processing device so that the heat processing of the substrate is performed by the heat processing device, and
take out the substrate from the heat processing device after the heat processing of the substrate is performed by the heat processing device.

8. The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein a plurality of the substrate mounting area are arranged along the direction of rotation of the table so that the substrates located in the substrate mounting areas, respectively, are moved sequentially to the plurality of processing areas and the isolation area by the rotation of the rotation device, and
wherein the control unit is configured to
cause the conveying unit to take out one of the substrates from the vacuum chamber of the film deposition device,
output the control signal that causes the respective substrate rotating unit to change a direction of the substrate with respect to the conveying unit, and
cause the conveying unit to convey the respective substrate, after the direction of the substrate has changed with respect to the conveying unit, to the film deposition device.

9. The substrate processing apparatus according to claim 8

Assignees

• Kato Hitoshi
• Honma Manabu
• Kikuchi Hiroyuki
• Wamura Yu
• Ogawa Jun
• Tokyo Electron Ltd

Inventors

• Kato Hitoshi
• Honma Manabu
• Kikuchi Hiroyuki
• Wamura Yu
• Ogawa Jun

Classifications

• H10P72/7621

  characterised by supporting two or more semiconductor substrates · CPC title

• H10P72/7618

  characterised by a movable susceptor, stage or support, others than those only rotating on their own vertical axis, e.g. susceptors on a rotating carrousel · CPC title

• H10P72/0462

  characterised by the construction of the processing chambers, e.g. modular processing chambers · CPC title

• H10P72/0434 Primary

  mainly by convection · CPC title

• H10P72/0468 Primary

  comprising a chamber adapted to a particular process · CPC title