Substrate treatment system, substrate transfer method, and a non-transitory computer storage medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9287145-B2
Application number	US-201213663179-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 29, 2012
Priority date	Nov 4, 2011
Publication date	Mar 15, 2016
Grant date	Mar 15, 2016

Abstract

In a coating and developing treatment system including a treatment station and an interface station, the interface station has: a cleaning unit cleaning a rear surface of a wafer before the wafer is transferred into an exposure apparatus; an inspection unit inspecting whether the cleaned wafer is in an exposable state; and a wafer transfer mechanism including an arm transferring the wafer between the cleaning unit and the inspection unit. Each of the cleaning unit and the inspection unit is provided at multiple tiers in an up and down direction on the front side in the interface station, and the wafer transfer mechanism is provided in a region adjacent to the cleaning units and the inspection units.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A substrate treatment system comprising a treatment station in which a plurality of treatment units each treating a substrate, and an interface station in a casing which is located between said treatment station and an exposure apparatus, the interface station delivering the substrate between said treatment station and an exposure apparatus provided outside the casing,
said interface station comprising:
a cleaning unit that cleans at least a rear surface of the substrate;
an inspection unit that inspects at least the rear surface of the cleaned substrate;
a substrate transfer mechanism including an arm that transfers the substrate between said cleaning unit and said inspection unit;
a buffer housing part that temporarily houses the substrate which has been inspected in said inspection unit; and
a substrate transfer control part, the substrate transfer control part is configured to
control the cleaning unit to clean at least the rear surface of the substrate,
control the substrate transfer mechanism to transfer the substrate from said cleaning unit into said inspection unit;
control the inspection unit to inspect at least the rear surface of the cleaned substrate transferred from the cleaning unit, to determine from a result of the inspection by the inspection unit whether the substrate is in an exposable state that allows exposure in the exposure apparatus, and when it is determined that the substrate is not in the exposable state to determine from the result of the inspection whether the substrate becomes the exposable state by re-cleaning;
control the substrate transfer mechanism to transfer the substrate which is inspected to the buffer housing part before transferring the substrate based on the result of the inspection by the inspection unit;
when it is determined from the result of the inspection that the state of the substrate is in the exposable state, control said substrate transfer mechanism to transfer the substrate to the exposure apparatus,
when it is determined from the result of the inspection that the state of the substrate becomes the exposable state by re-cleaning, control said substrate transfer mechanism to transfer the substrate again to said cleaning unit and control the cleaning unit to re-clean at least the rear surface of the substrate,
when it is determined from the result of the inspection that the state of the substrate does not become the exposable state by re-cleaning, stop the treatments on the substrate, and control the substrate transfer mechanism to facilitate collecting the substrate;

the cleaning unit, the inspection unit, and the buffer housing part are arranged in the same casing which is located between the treatment stations and the exposure apparatus,
wherein each of said cleaning unit and said inspection unit is provided at multiple tiers in an up and down direction on either a front side or a back side in said interface station, and
wherein said substrate transfer mechanism is provided in a region adjacent to said cleaning units and said inspection units provided at multiple tiers in the up and down direction.

2. The substrate treatment system as set forth in claim 1 ,
wherein said substrate transfer control part is further configured to control said substrate transfer mechanism to transfer the substrate which has been transferred again to said cleaning unit and cleaned therein, again to said inspection unit.

3. The substrate treatment system as set forth in claim 1 ,
wherein said substrate transfer mechanism includes a first transfer arm and a second transfer arm, the substrate transfer control part is configured to control the first transfer arm to transfer the substrate in said interface station to said cleaning unit, and to control the second transfer arm to transfer the substrate which has been cleaned in said cleaning unit to said inspection unit and to the substrate which has been inspected in said inspection unit to said buffer housing part.

4. The substrate treatment system as set forth in claim 1 ,
wherein said substrate transfer mechanism includes a first transfer arm, a second transfer arm, and a third transfer arm, the substrate transfer control part is configured to control the first transfer arm to transfer the substrate transferred in said interface station to said cleaning unit, to control the second transfer arm to transfer the substrate which has been cleaned in said cleaning unit to said inspection unit, and to control the third transfer arm to transfer the substrate which has been inspected in said inspection unit to said buffer housing part.

5. The substrate treatment system as set forth in claim 1 ,
wherein the substrate transfer control part waits to control a transfer of the substrate from said buffer housing part while said buffer housing part houses the inspected substrate until an inspection result of the inspected substrate is available.

6. The substrate treatment system as set forth in claim 1 ,
further comprising an arm cleaning mechanism provided on a side where said cleaning units and said inspection units are arranged in said interface station,
wherein the substrate transfer control part is further configured to control the cleaning mechanism to clean the transfer arm of said substrate transfer mechanism.

7. The substrate treatment system as set forth in claim 6 ,
wherein said cleaning unit also serves as said arm cleaning mechanism.

8. The substrate treatment system as set forth in claim 1 , further comprising:
a temperature regulation mechanism regulating a temperature of the substrate which has been inspected in said inspection unit and will be transferred into said exposure apparatus, to a predetermined temperature.

9. The substrate treatment system as set forth in claim 8 ,
wherein said temperature regulation mechanism is provided in said inspection unit.

Assignees

• Tokyo Electron Ltd

Inventors

• Nakaharada Masahiro
• Sakata Yoji
• Miyata Akira
• Hayashi Shinichi
• Enokida Suguru
• Nakashima Tsunenaga

Classifications

• H10P72/7614

  characterised by a plurality of individual support members, e.g. support posts or protrusions · CPC title

• H10P72/3306

  Horizontal transfer of a single workpiece · CPC title

• H10P72/0604

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

• H10P72/0471

  comprising at least one ion or electron beam chamber · CPC title

• H10P72/0462

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