JP2002299405A - Substrate transporting apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a substrate transporting apparatus which prevents the re-contamination of cleaned substrates and allows a plurality of substrates to be exchanged in a comparatively simple constitution. SOLUTION: A main transport robot for transporting a substrate W to a processor has a first and second holders 33, 34 formed on the upside of a support arm forming a hand. The first holder 33 is for transporting an uncleaned substrate W before a cleaning step and the second holder 34 is used only for transporting the substrate W after the cleaning step. The first and second holders 33, 34 are composed of a plurality of support faces for holding the substrates of the same size and hold the substrates W included so as to mutually overlap part of their substrate W holding spaces.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to various substrates to be processed (hereinafter simply referred to as substrates) such as a semiconductor wafer, a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display, and a glass substrate for a PDP (plasma display panel). The present invention relates to a substrate transfer device for transferring a substrate to a processing unit for performing various processes on the substrate.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When a semiconductor device or a liquid crystal display device is manufactured, various processes must be repeatedly performed on a substrate. For example, the process of forming a circuit pattern on the substrate includes a film forming process and a photo process. In these processes, the processing of the substrate and the cleaning are repeatedly performed. For example, if the substrate is exposed, the substrate is subjected to an etching process, and then an ashing process for removing the resist from the substrate is performed. Next, the operation of cleaning the ashed substrate and then performing the drying process is repeatedly performed.

[0003] In the various processing steps described above, for example, a scalar type robot device is used as a transfer device for transferring a substrate to each processing unit. As is well known, the transfer device has a main body, and the main body is provided with a drive shaft that is driven to rotate. One or more arms are connected to the other end of the drive shaft. A hand is provided at the tip of the arm, and the hand is provided with a holding portion for holding the substrate.

When the drive shaft is driven to rotate, a plurality of arms and hands are linked to this rotation, and the leading hand is driven forward or backward. Thereby, the substrate held by the holding portion of the hand can be delivered. In a single-wafer-type substrate processing apparatus for processing substrates one by one, the pair of arms is configured to be able to advance and retreat independently of the processing unit.

On the other hand, one of the important processes performed on the substrate is a cleaning process for removing unnecessary films and particles on the surface of the substrate. Therefore, the substrate processing apparatus may be provided with a cleaning processing unit for cleaning the substrate. However, in carrying in and out by a pair of arms as described above, it is undefined which arm will hold a substrate before processing and a substrate after processing in each processing unit, There is a case where the substrate after the cleaning process is carried out by an arm having a history of holding the substrate. In this case, there is a problem that particles transferred to the arm from the substrate before the cleaning process are further transferred to the substrate after the cleaning process, causing recontamination of the cleaned substrate.

Therefore, for the purpose of favorably carrying a substrate into and out of a processing unit without giving an adverse effect of an unprocessed substrate to a processed substrate, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 7-297256 discloses an example. The disclosed one has been proposed. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-297256 discloses a pair of supporting means and an interval changing means for changing an interval between the pair of supporting means. Each of the pair of supporting means corresponds to a change in the interval between the supporting means. A substrate transfer device is described in which a first support unit that supports the periphery of a substrate before cleaning and a second support unit that supports the periphery of the substrate in the cleaning unit are formed.

[0007]

However, in the case of the conventional example having such a configuration, there is room for improvement as follows. In such a substrate transfer device, the substrate before cleaning is supported by the first support portion and the substrate after cleaning is supported by the second support portion in accordance with the change in the interval between the support means, so that contamination of the substrate is reduced. It was suppressed. However, it is necessary to configure a drive unit as the interval changing means, and the structure becomes complicated, and the weight of the entire transport device increases. This hindered downsizing of the device.

Further, it is necessary to change the distance between the pair of supporting means from a state where the substrate before cleaning is supported to a state where the substrate after cleaning is supported. Therefore, in order to hold the edge of the substrate, it is necessary to make a configuration in which the interval can be changed with sufficient positional accuracy. Alternatively, it is necessary to form a portion of the support means for supporting the substrate edge with a sufficient size, and there is a problem in making the apparatus compact.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to solve the above-described technical problems and to recontaminate a cleaned substrate after being subjected to a cleaning process. And a compact substrate transfer device.

[0010]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention relates to a substrate transfer apparatus having an arm and transferring a substrate by a hand provided at the tip of the arm. A plurality of holding portions for holding different substrates are formed on the same side of the hand of the hand.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the substrate transport apparatus of the first aspect, the hand is provided with a holding portion for holding substrates of the same size.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the substrate transfer apparatus according to the second aspect, the holding portion supports both ends of the substrate in the diametrical direction and has a pair of projections having different projection positions from one surface of the hand. The first holding portion has a pair of support surfaces disposed across one support surface of the second holding portion, and the second holding portion has the other support surface having the first holding surface. The first and second holding portions are arranged so as to straddle one support surface of the portion, and the substrate holding spaces of the first and second holding portions overlap.

The operation of the present invention is as follows. In the substrate transport device according to the first aspect of the present invention, the substrate is held by a plurality of holding units formed on the hand. For example,
The first holding unit holds the uncleaned substrate, and the second holding unit holds the cleaned substrate. Therefore, there is no possibility that particles from the holding unit having the history of holding the uncleaned substrate are transferred to the cleaned substrate, so that recontamination of the cleaned substrate can be prevented. Further, since the holding portion is formed on the same side of the hand, the device becomes compact. Furthermore, since it is formed so as to hold different substrates in advance,
There is no need to add a configuration for resetting the substrate holding position.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the holding portion is formed so as to hold substrates of the same size.
For example, when loading a substrate into a processing unit that performs a cleaning process, and then unloading a processed substrate and loading it into another processing unit, loading and unloading the substrate into and from this processing unit must be performed one after another. Can be.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the substrate is held by the first holding portion across one support surface of the second holding portion. In the second holding unit, the substrate is held across one support surface of the first holding unit. That is, the substrate holding spaces of the first and second holding units are overlapped, and a small hand is provided.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. <Structure of Substrate Processing Apparatus> FIG. 1 is a simplified plan view showing a layout of a substrate processing apparatus provided with a substrate transfer apparatus of the present invention.

In this substrate processing apparatus, a substrate W is placed in a cassette C
The substrate W is subjected to a first chemical treatment, a second chemical treatment, and a washing / drying treatment in this order in order to clean the substrate W by utilizing the etching effect of the chemical. It is a type cleaning device. First and second
Is a process for cleaning the surface of the substrate W using a chemical such as hydrofluoric acid or aqueous ammonia, and different chemicals are used for the first chemical treatment and the second chemical treatment. The water washing / drying process is a process for rinsing the substrate W after the chemical solution treatment with pure water, and rotating the substrate W at a high speed to perform draining and drying.

In order to execute the above processing, the substrate processing apparatus includes an indexer section IND and an indexer section I.
And a processing unit P provided adjacent to the ND. The indexer section IND includes a cassette mounting section 1 on which a plurality of cassettes C capable of accommodating a plurality of substrates W can be arranged in a line and mounted thereon, and the cassette mounting section 1
And an indexer robot 2 for taking out the unprocessed substrates W one by one from the cassette C placed in the cassette C and storing the processed substrates one by one. The indexer robot 2 is configured to be able to travel along a linear transport path 3 along the direction in which the cassettes C are arranged in the cassette mounting portion 1 and is used exclusively for taking out an unprocessed substrate W. Board removal hand,
A substrate accommodating hand exclusively used for accommodating the processed substrate W.

The processing section P includes a linear transport path 13 disposed near the middle of the linear transport path 3 of the indexer section IND along a direction orthogonal to the linear transport path 3, and a linear transport path 13 along the linear transport path 13. And a traveling main transfer robot MTR. The details of the main transfer robot MTR will be described later. A first processing track 11 and a second processing track 12 are distributed on both sides of the linear transport path 13. First processing track 11 and second processing track 12
Has a plurality of processing units MTC1 to MTC4 that continuously perform the first chemical processing, the second chemical processing, and the washing / drying processing in one processing unit. The units MTC1 to MTC4 are arranged two by two along the straight transport path 13.

The loading and unloading of substrates W to and from the processing units MTC1 to MTC4 of the first processing track 11 and the second processing track 12 are performed by the main transfer robot MTR. The main transfer robot MTR receives the unprocessed substrate W from the indexer robot 2 and receives the unprocessed substrate W from the first processing unit MTC1.
The substrate W after the processing in the first processing unit MTC1 is completed is transferred to the indexer robot 2. Similarly,
The unprocessed substrate W is carried into the second processing unit MTC2, and the substrate W after the processing in the second processing unit MTC2 is finished is carried out and transferred to the indexer robot 2.

<Structure of Substrate Transfer Apparatus> FIG. 2 is a simplified perspective view showing an example of the structure of the main transfer robot MTR.
The main transfer robot MTR includes a base 22 movably provided on a rail 21 disposed on the linear transfer path 13.
A lifting / rotating table 23 which is provided to be able to move up and down and rotate around a vertical axis with respect to the base 22;
The turntable 23 is provided with one substrate holding arm HA provided to be able to move forward and backward. The main transfer robot MTR
Corresponds to the substrate transfer device of the present invention.

The base 22 is provided with a ball nut which is screwed to a screw shaft arranged outside the figure along the rail 21. The screw shaft receives rotation from a motor capable of normal and reverse rotation. Is to be given. In this manner, a ball screw mechanism for reciprocating linear movement of the base 22 along the rail is constituted by the screw shaft and the motor. The lifting and lowering of the rotating base 23 with respect to the base 22 is performed by a ball screw mechanism (not shown).

FIG. 3 is a plan view of the main transfer bot MTR, and FIG.
Is a side view, and the substrate holding arm HA of the main transfer bot MTR has a first arm 2
5 are connected at one end. One end of a second arm 26 is connected to the other end of the first arm 25. A mounting member 27 is provided at the other end of the second arm 26, and a hand 28 is removably mounted on the mounting member 27.

The first arm 25 and the second arm 26
Pulleys (not shown) are provided at the connection portion of the mounting member 27, and belts (not shown) are also stretched over these pulleys. The first arm 25, the second arm 26, and the mounting member 27 are adapted to be linked with the rotation of the elevating / rotating table 23.
That is, when the elevating and rotating table 23 is driven to rotate,
The first arm 25 and the second arm 26 in a bent state extend in a predetermined direction. Note that the extending direction of the arms 25 and 26 can be changed by rotating the elevating / rotating table 23. In addition, the elevating and rotating table 23
The height position of the arms 25 and 26 can be adjusted by driving the arm in the vertical direction.

The hand 28 has a pair of support arms 31 and 32 for supporting the substrate W. The support arms 31 and 32 are arranged facing each other in a posture capable of supporting the substrate W. Further details will be described with reference to FIGS.
FIG. 5 is a plan view showing a shape of a main part of the support arms 31 and 32,
6A and 6B are partial cross-sectional views taken along line AA-AA in FIG. FIG. 6A shows the support arms 31, 3
FIG. 6B shows a state in which the substrate 2 supports the substrate W before cleaning.
The state in which the support arms 31 and 32 support the substrate W after cleaning,
Shown respectively.

Each of the support arms 31 and 32 is formed in a plate shape from resin, and has a first holding portion 33 for holding the peripheral edge of the substrate W to be conveyed on the upper surface facing each other. The two holding portions 34 are formed integrally with the support arms 31 and 32. The first holding portion 33 and the second holding portion 34 are configured by combining a plurality of flat, tapered support surfaces formed in an arc shape on the support arms 31 and 32 along the edges of the substrate W, respectively. Have been.

The support arm 31 has a rising wall 36 which is formed at the edge of the first supporting surface 35 which is formed lower on the upper surface and which draws the same arc as the outer peripheral edge of the substrate W. The second support surface 37 is formed continuously. In the support arm 32, a rising wall 39 that draws the same arc as the outer peripheral edge of the substrate W is formed at the edge of the first supporting surface 38 that is formed lower on the upper surface, and is connected to the upper end of the rising wall 39. Thus, a second support surface 40 is formed.

According to the hand 28 having such a configuration, the first holding portion 33 is constituted by the pair of the second support surface 37 of the support arm 31 and the first support surface 38 of the support arm 32. Then, for example, a substrate W (shown in a cross section in FIG. 6A) such as a semiconductor wafer having a diameter of 200 mm can be held in an inclined posture.

The second holding portion 34 includes a pair of a first support surface 35 of the support arm 31 and a second support surface 40 of the support arm 32. And, similarly, a substrate W having a diameter of 200 mm (FIG. 6)
(Shown in cross section in (b)) can be held in an inclined posture.

That is, when the first holding portion 33 and the second holding portion 34 hold the substrate W as shown in FIG. 6A, the first holding portion 33 One support surface 35
The first support surface 38 of the support arm 32 and the second support surface 37 located above and outside the first support surface 35 are configured as a pair so that the substrate W straddles the first support surface 35. The first support surface 35 of the support arm 31 functions as one support surface of the second holding portion 34, but the substrate W does not contact the first support surface 35.

As shown in FIG. 6B, when holding the substrate W, the second holding portion 34 moves the first supporting surface 38 of the supporting arm 32 so that the substrate W straddles the first supporting surface 38. The second support surface 40 located outside and above the surface 38 and the first support surface 35 of the support arm 31 constitute a pair. The first support surface 35 of the support arm 32 functions as one support surface of the first holding portion 33, and the substrate W
Never abut. That is, the respective holding portions 33 and 34 are arranged so as to straddle one of the support surfaces,
Since the holding space for the substrate W is partially overlapped vertically, different substrates W are held by different holding portions, and the configuration of the compact hand 28 is achieved.

The rising walls 36 and 39 regulate the position of the edge of the substrate W supported by the first and second holding portions 33 and 34 to the left and right, thereby positioning the substrate W.

The first and second holding portions 33,
Since 34 is formed of a stepped portion, it is easy to integrally form it with the hand 28. Further, the step portion may be formed by a separate member and bonded.

Further, one of the two holding units 33 and 34 is provided with one of the first to fourth processing units MT.
It is set as a holding part of an uncleaned substrate transfer arm used for loading the substrate W into C1 to MTC4.

The other second holding portion 34 is set as a cleaned substrate arm used only for carrying out the substrate after the completion of the cleaning process. That is, the second holding unit 34 is used only when the substrate W after the washing / drying process is carried out and transferred to the indexer robot 2.

Next, an example of the processing flow is as follows. Returning to FIG. 1, first, when receiving the substrate W stored in the cassette C, the indexer robot 2
Can be integrally moved in the Y direction indicated by an arrow U along the transport path 3. Then, it moves in the Y direction to the front of the target cassette C, and moves in the Z direction to move the target substrate W.
, And further move in the X direction to enter the cassette C below the target substrate W. Thereafter, the substrate W can be held on the hand by raising the hand in the Z direction. And
The hand is retracted from the cassette C along the X direction.

Thereafter, the indexer robot 2 moves in the Y direction, and at the substrate transfer position, the main transfer robot MTR receives the substrate W with the substrate holding arm HA. In a state where the substrate W is held by the first holding unit 33 of the hand 28, the hand 28 travels to the first processing unit MTC1.

At this time, the main transfer robot MTR
As shown in (a), the center line CR2 of the substrate is
Are displaced to the left in the drawing from the center line CR1 of the support arms 31 and 32 of FIG. By doing so, the substrate W
The first holding portion 33 is securely held without falling off on the second support surface 37 and the first support surface 38. In this setting, the position of the substrate holding arm HA with respect to the substrate W is controlled by controlling the moving position of the base 22.

Then, with the substrate holding arm HA facing the first processing unit MTC1, the hand 28 enters the first processing unit MTC1, and the first holding unit 33 of the hand 28 When the transfer of the substrate W to the processing unit MTC1 is completed, the hand 28 moves to the first processing unit MTC1.
You are ejected from. Thus, the first processing unit MTC1
Is carried in the substrate W to be processed.

When a series of processing of the substrate W in the first processing unit MTC1 is completed, the main transfer robot MTR next causes the substrate holding arm HA to enter the first processing unit MTC1, and the first processing unit MTC1 The substrate W that has been processed by the MTC 1 is held by the second holding unit 34 of the hand 28 and is unloaded. Thus, the loading / unloading of the substrate W to be processed in the first processing unit MTC2 is performed.

At this time, the main transfer robot MTR
As shown in (b), the center line CR3 of the substrate is
The support arms 31 and 32 are displaced to the right in the drawing with respect to the center line CR1 to hold the substrate W. By doing so, the substrate W
The first support surface 35 and the second support surface 40 constituting the second holding portion 34 securely hold the first holding portion 35 without falling off.

Next, the main transfer robot MTR moves to the substrate transfer position while holding the cleaned substrate W, which has been subjected to the cleaning processing in the first processing unit MTC1, to the hand 28. Then, the wafer W moves to the vicinity of the indexer unit IND, and transfers the cleaned substrate W to the wafer accommodating hand of the indexer robot 2.

The indexer robot 2 having the transferred wafer W transferred to the wafer holding hand transfers the cleaned substrate W to any one of the plurality of cassettes C mounted on the cassette mounting portion 1. To accommodate. At this time, if an unload cassette that stores only the cleaned substrates is predetermined, the cleaned substrates W are stored in the unload cassette. In the so-called uni-cassette mode, the cassette C in which the substrate W was originally stored is set.
The cleaned substrate W is stored in the original storage position of the above.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the main transfer robot MTR is provided with a holding section dedicated to transporting the substrate before cleaning and a holding section dedicated to unloading the cleaned substrate on the same side of the hand 28. Formed and provided. Thus, the holding unit having the history of holding the unprocessed substrate W does not hold the cleaned substrate W after the cleaning process. As a result, re-contamination of the cleaned substrate W after the completion of the cleaning process is prevented.

In addition, the hand 28 includes a plurality of holding units 3
Since the substrates 3 and 34 are provided on the same surface side, different substrates can be held with a simple configuration. By setting the holding space so that a part of the substrate is overlapped when holding the substrate, the hand can be downsized.

In the first embodiment, an example in which the substrate transfer apparatus of the present invention is applied to the main transfer robot MTR has been described. However, the substrate transfer apparatus may be applied to the indexer robot 2.

Although one embodiment of the present invention has been described above, the present invention can be embodied in other forms of the substrate transfer apparatus. <Second Embodiment> FIG. 7 is a simplified plan view showing a layout of a substrate processing apparatus provided with a substrate transfer apparatus according to a second embodiment. In addition, about the structure similar to 1st Example, the same code | symbol is attached | subjected and description is abbreviate | omitted.

The cassette IN stores a plurality of unprocessed substrates W in a stacked manner, and can store, for example, 25 substrates W. This cassette IN is mounted on a cassette mounting table. Further, the cassette OUT stores the processed substrates W in a stacked state. In the apparatus of this embodiment, the cassettes IN and OUT adopt a closed FOUP structure in order to cope with high cleanliness. Therefore, the cassette mounting section 1 includes a mechanism (not shown) for opening and closing a shutter (not shown) provided in each of the cassettes IN and OUT. It goes without saying that the uni-cassette mode can be set as described above.

A main transfer robot MTR2 is provided in the X direction of the cassette mounting portion 1 in the figure. The main transfer robot MTR2 includes one arm for transferring an unprocessed substrate W and transferring the processed substrate W. The main transfer robot MTR2 can turn around the Z axis and can move up and down along the Z axis.

A processing section P is disposed on the opposite side of the cassette mounting section 1 across the main transfer robot MTR2. In this embodiment, for example, the first processing unit M
It includes a TC5 and a second processing unit MTC6.

By the way, in this embodiment, since the cassettes IN and OUT adopting the FOUP structure are employed, the main transfer robot MTR2 and the processing section P are actually surrounded by a shielding plate and exposed to the outside. Absent.

The second embodiment differs from the first embodiment in the hand 280 in the main transfer robot MTR2. And
The arrangement of the holding part in the hand 280 is characterized by
Hereinafter, the configuration will be described with reference to FIG. FIG.
Is a plan view showing the shape of the hand 280.

The hand 280 includes a first holding unit 330 and a second holding unit 3 for holding the periphery of the substrate W to be conveyed.
By disposing 40 on each of support arms 310 and 320, two first holding portions 330 and two second holding portions 340 are provided. And, the disposition direction is the support arm 31
0 and 320 are formed integrally on the same upper surface side apart from the distal end side and the base end side connected to the arm.

According to the hand 280 having such a configuration,
The substrate W is provided on the first holding portion 33 of the support arms 310 and 320.
0, 330 and the holding of the support arms 310, 320 by the second holding portions 340, 340 are achieved.

When the substrate W is held by the first holding portions 330, 330, the center line CR20 of the substrate W is aligned with the center line C between the holding portions in the longitudinal direction of the support arms 31, 32.
The substrate W is displaced to the left in FIG. Further, when the substrate W is held by the second holding portions 340, 340, the center line CR30 of the substrate W is displaced to the right side in the figure with respect to the center line CR10 between the holding portions in the longitudinal direction of the support arms 31, 32. To hold the substrate W.

That is, in the first embodiment, when the substrate W is held by different holding portions, the holding position is changed to the supporting arms 31 and 3.
The two are held out of alignment. On the other hand, in the second embodiment, the substrate W
Is different in that the holding positions are shifted in the longitudinal direction of the support arms 310 and 320 when the holding arms are held by different holding portions.

As a result, in the first embodiment, when the substrate W is held by the substrate transfer device MTR2, it is necessary to adjust the position in the direction perpendicular to the direction in which the hand 280 expands and contracts. In this case, the substrate W can be held in the different holding units 330 and 340 only by controlling the expansion and contraction direction of the hand 280. Therefore, different substrates W can be held by setting the expansion and contraction distance of the arm of the main transfer robot MTR2.

Next, the main transfer robot MT having the above-described configuration will be described.
The operation of R2 will be described with reference to FIG. In the following description, it is assumed that only the first processing unit MTC5 among the processing units P is used.

First, an unprocessed substrate W is taken out of the cassette IN by holding the substrate W in the first holding unit 330 by the main transfer robot MTR2, and is turned and loaded into the first processing unit MTC5. . When the processing on the substrate W is completed, the main transport robot MTR2 takes out the processed substrate W from the first processing unit MTC5 by holding the substrate W in the second holding unit 340, and
It is transported to the cassette OUT. Thus, the processing for one substrate W is completed.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the main transfer robot MTR2 is provided with a different substrate holder formed on the same side of the hand 280. Thus, the holding unit having the history of holding the unprocessed substrate W does not hold the cleaned substrate W after the cleaning process. Moreover, the hand 28 can be downsized with a simple configuration.

Further, the control operation at the time of loading / unloading the substrate W by the main transfer robot MTR2 can be performed by controlling the extension / contraction distance of the conventional arm. Further, according to the second embodiment, since the four sides are held by the holding portion, the rising wall of the holding portion regulates the peripheral edge of the substrate W. As a result, when the transport speed is high or when there is an emergency stop, even if the substrate W slides on the support surface of the holding unit, the substrate W is regulated by the rising wall,
The holding position can be prevented from being largely shifted.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but can be modified as follows. (1) In the above embodiment, an example of the main transfer robot having one hand has been described.
A robot having a configuration in which a plurality of hands are stacked and arranged in a plan view can be used instead of the main transfer robot. In this case, all three or four hands may be arranged in parallel in plan view.

(2) FIG. 9 is a sectional view showing the support arms 410 and 420 of the hand according to the third embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment described above, each support surface 35, 3
In the present embodiment, the first support surfaces 430, 450 and the second support surfaces 440, 460 of the support arm 410 and the support arm 420 are formed.
Is formed on a discontinuous inclined surface so as to decrease toward the center of the substrate W to be supported.

In this case, the substrate W held at an angle is
Since both edges generate a force toward the center, side slip on the support surface is unlikely to occur. Therefore, the state of holding the substrate W can be maintained more stable. In the third embodiment, portions other than the support arms 410 and 420 are the same as those in the first embodiment, and thus illustration and description are omitted.

(3) FIG. 10 is a sectional view showing the support arms 510 and 520 of the hand according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment, each support surface 530, 54
The projections 531, 541, 551, and 561 that are in contact with the lower surface of the substrate W held on a flat surface are formed at 0, 550, and 560. By doing so, the substrate W is held when the substrate W is held.
The transfer of dust to the substrate W can be reduced by making the portion in contact with the substrate smaller.

(4) In the above-described embodiment, two support surfaces are provided for each support arm. However, three support surfaces may be provided. That is, as shown in FIG. 11, three holding units 600, 610, and 620
May be formed to hold three substrates. In this case, the first holding unit 600 is used for holding the substrate W before cleaning, and the second holding unit 610 and the third holding unit 620 are used for holding the substrate W after cleaning. By doing so,
By switching the holding unit to be used when one of the second holding unit 610 and the third holding unit 620 becomes dirty, re-contamination of the cleaned substrate W that has been subjected to the cleaning process is prevented. You.

Further, a configuration in which three or more surfaces are arranged may be adopted, but the holding portion becomes higher and the inclination when holding the substrate becomes larger. Therefore, it can be said that a configuration in which two or three surfaces are arranged is practically preferable.

(5) In the above embodiment, a substrate processing apparatus for processing a substrate has been described as an example.
The present invention is also applicable to an apparatus that processes other types of substrates to be processed, such as a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display device. In addition, various (design) changes can be made within the scope of the technical matters described in the claims.

In this specification, “cleaning” refers to unnecessary substances (for example, particles, organic substances, metal ions, chemicals and gases in pretreatment) and thin films (for example, metal films, oxide films, (E.g., an insulating film), and includes, for example, a so-called etching process in which a chemical solution such as hydrofluoric acid or its vapor is supplied to the substrate surface to etch a thin film on the substrate surface. Since the hand of the transfer arm of this embodiment has a fork shape, the transfer can be performed in the same manner using a mask in which only the exposure area is covered with a thin film (pellicle).

[0070]

As described above, according to the present invention, a compact substrate transfer apparatus capable of holding a plurality of substrates on the same side of the hand is provided. Therefore, for example, since the cleaned substrate is not held by the holding unit of the hand having the history of holding the uncleaned substrate, the cleaned substrate is not re-contaminated by particles from the holding unit of the hand. No substrate transport apparatus is provided.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a simplified plan view showing a layout of a substrate processing apparatus provided with a substrate transfer apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a simplified perspective view showing a configuration example of a main transfer robot MTR.

FIG. 3 is a plan view of a main transport bot MTR.

FIG. 4 is a side view of the main transport bot MTR.

FIG. 5 is a plan view showing the shapes of support arms 31 and 32.

6 is a cross-sectional view taken along line AA-AA of FIG. 5. FIG. 6A is a diagram illustrating a state in which support arms 31 and 32 support a substrate W before cleaning. b) the supporting arms 31, 3
FIG. 2 is an explanatory view showing a state where a substrate W after cleaning is supported.

FIG. 7 is a simplified plan view showing a layout of a substrate processing apparatus provided with a substrate transfer apparatus according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a plan view illustrating a configuration example of a hand according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a sectional view showing a support arm of a hand according to a third embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a sectional view showing a support arm of a hand according to a fourth embodiment.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram according to still another embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

W Substrate MTR, MTR2 Main transfer robot HA Substrate holding arm 28, 280 Hand 31, 32, 310, 320, 410, 420, 51
0, 520 Support arm 33, 600 First holding part 34, 620 Second holding part 630 Third holding part 35, 38, 430, 450 First supporting surface 36, 39 Rising wall 37, 40, 440, 460 Second support surface C Cassette 2 Indexer robot 22 Base 23 Elevating / rotating table 25 First arm 26 Second arm

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H01L 21/304 648 H01L 21/304 648A 4-chome Tenjin 1-1-1 Kitamachi Dai-Nihon Screen Manufacturing Co., Ltd. F term (reference) 3B116 AA02 AA03 AB08 AB23 BB00 CC03 3C007 AS05 AS24 BS15 CT02 CT04 CT05 CV07 CW07 DS01 ES17 EV05 EV24 EW16 NS09 NS12 NS13 5F031 CA02 CA05 FA01 FA02 FA18 GA05 GA06 GA43 MA23 PA26

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A substrate transfer apparatus having an arm and transferring a substrate by a hand provided at a distal end of the arm, wherein the hand includes a plurality of holding units for holding different substrates. A substrate transfer device formed on a surface side. 2. The substrate transfer apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the hand has a holding portion for holding substrates of the same size. 3. The substrate transfer apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the holding portion supports both diametrical edges of the substrate, and has a pair of support surfaces having different projection positions from one surface of the hand. The first holding portion has a pair of support surfaces disposed across one support surface of the second holding portion, and the second holding portion has the other support surface having one support surface of the first holding portion. And a substrate holding space provided by the first and second holding units overlaps with each other.