KR20050082514A - Method treating substrates in an apparatus for manufacturing semiconductor devices - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method of processing a semiconductor substrate in a photolithography facility. According to the present invention, a plurality of cassettes each containing substrates in each group are placed in an index portion, and chambers in which a plurality of process modules are arranged are stacked on each other. The index robot placed in the index unit sequentially unloads the substrates from each cassette one by one and alternately transfers the substrates to each chamber set to perform a predetermined process for each group. The substrate is applied or developed in each chamber.

Description

METHODS TREATING SUBSTRATES IN AN APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES

The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device, and more particularly to a method for processing a substrate in a facility in which a predetermined process is performed.

In the semiconductor manufacturing process, the photolithography process is a process of evenly applying a photoresist, a material sensitive to light, to the surface of a substrate. The photoresist is applied by passing light through a reticle on which a circuit pattern is drawn using a stepper. It is divided into the process of exposing the board | substrate which was used, and the process of developing the film | membrane of the part which received the light on the surface of a board | substrate through an exposure process.

In general, a photoresist apparatus includes an index unit in which a cassette containing wafers is placed, an application unit in which a plurality of modules are installed for performing an application or development process, an interface unit, and an exposure unit in which an exposure process is performed. An index robot is disposed in the index unit to transfer the wafer between the cassette and the coating and developing unit, and an interface robot is arranged at the interface unit to transfer the wafer between the coating and developing unit and the exposure unit.

The index robot sequentially transfers the wafers contained in the cassette to the coating and developing unit, but the process takes a long time in each module of the coating and developing unit, so that one wafer is transferred from the cassette to the coating and developing unit and the next wafer is applied. And the index robot waits a considerable time until the turn over to the developing unit. Therefore, the waiting time of the index robot is long in the general installation, so that the maximum efficiency of the installation is not achieved.

An object of the present invention is to provide a substrate processing method that can maximize the efficiency of the equipment by reducing the waiting time of the index robot in the semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

In order to achieve the above object, the substrate processing method of the present invention includes an index robot placed in the index unit in a facility in which a plurality of cassettes each containing substrates are placed in an index unit and chambers in which a plurality of process modules are arranged are stacked. Alternately transfers the substrates from each of the cassettes to each of the chambers set to perform a predetermined process for each group by unloading the substrates one by one.

Substrates transferred to each of the chambers may be subjected to an application or development process. In addition, the substrates transferred to the respective chambers may be performed in different recipes.

In addition, in the substrate processing method of the present invention, the cassettes in which the plurality of wafers are placed are placed in the index unit, and the index robot placed in the index unit in the facility in which the chambers in which the plurality of process modules are arranged is stacked is one substrate from the cassette. Unloading sequentially transports the substrates alternately into the chambers.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5. The embodiments of the present invention may be modified in various forms, and the scope of the present invention should not be construed as being limited by the embodiments described below. This embodiment is provided to more completely explain the present invention to those skilled in the art. Therefore, the shape of the elements in the drawings are exaggerated to emphasize a clearer description.

1 is a plan view illustrating an example of a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus to which a substrate treating method of the present invention is applied, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the coating and developing unit 200 of FIG. 1. In the present embodiment, the semiconductor manufacturing equipment is a photolithography process in which the indexing part 100, the coating and developing part 200, the interface part 300, and the exposure part 400 are sequentially disposed. They are arranged side by side in the following (first direction). The index unit 100 has a cassette holder 120 and a robot movement path 140. The cassettes 10 in which semiconductor substrates such as a wafer are accommodated are placed in the cassette holder 120, and the index robot 144 for transferring the wafer is disposed in the robot movement path 140. The index robot 144 transfers the wafer between the cassette 10 and the application and development unit 200. Although not shown in detail in the drawings, the index robot 144 is movable along the rail 142 in a direction perpendicular to the above-described first direction (hereinafter, referred to as a second direction) on a horizontal plane, and may be driven up and down. Has a structure. Since the structure for transferring the index robot 144 in the horizontal direction and the vertical direction can be easily configured by those skilled in the art, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

The application and development unit 200 performs an application process of applying a photoresist such as a photoresist to the wafer and a development process of removing an area exposed to the wafer exposed by the exposure unit 400 to be described later, or vice versa. The coating and developing unit 200 includes a plurality of modules 240a and 240b. The module for performing the coating process may be provided with a module for performing an electrostatic process, a module for performing wafer cooling, a module for applying photoresist to a wafer surface, and a module for performing a soft bake process. Module that heats the exposed wafer to a predetermined temperature, a module that cools the wafer, a module that sprays the developer onto the wafer and removes the exposed or vice versa, and a hard bake process. Module may be provided.

According to this embodiment, the coating and developing unit 200 has a stacked structure. In the present embodiment, the coating and developing unit 200 has a stacked first chamber and a second chamber. The second chamber is stacked on the first chamber, hereinafter the first chamber is referred to as the lower chamber 200a and the second chamber is referred to as the upper chamber 200b. The lower chamber 200a may include a first moving path 220a in which the first robot 260a is moved, and modules 240a may be arranged in a row on both sides of the first moving path 220a. . The modules 240a installed in the lower chamber 200a may be modules that perform an application process and modules that perform a development process. The upper chamber 200b may have the same arrangement as the lower chamber 200a. That is, a second moving path 220b is formed in the center of the upper chamber 200b to move the second robot 260b, and modules 240b are arranged in a row on both sides of the second moving path 220b. Can be. In this case, both the upper chamber 200b and the lower chamber 200a may perform an application process and a development process.

3 is a plan view of a semiconductor fabrication facility showing an example in which modules 240b 'are different from FIG. One side of the lower chamber (not shown) is provided with a first moving path to move the above-described first robot, the other side may be installed modules are performed the coating process. In addition, a second moving path 220b 'through which the second robot 260b' is moved may be disposed at one side of the upper chamber 200b, and modules 240b 'may be installed at the other side. On the contrary, modules in which the coating process is performed may be installed in the lower chamber 200a, and modules in which the developing process is performed may be installed in the upper chamber 200b '.

Referring back to FIG. 1, the exposure unit 400 has a stepper for exposing a photoresist film applied on a wafer and a wafer edge exposure (WEE) for exposing an edge of the wafer. The interface unit 300 is disposed between the 400 and the coating and developing unit 200. The interface 300 is disposed with an interface robot 340 for transferring a wafer between the exposure unit 400 and the coating and developing unit 200. The interface robot 340 is movable along the rail 320 in the above-described second direction and has a structure that can be moved up and down.

In general, during the photolithography process, the wafer is unloaded from the cassette 10 by the index robot 144, transferred to the coating and developing unit 200, and then the coating process is performed. Thereafter, the interface robot 340 is transferred to the exposure unit 400 to perform an exposure process. The exposed wafer is transferred to the coating and developing unit 200 by the interface robot 340, and then a developing process is performed. The wafer is then loaded into the cassette 10 by the index robot 144. However, when using a general equipment consisting of a single layer, as described in the prior art, the waiting time of the index robot 144 is long, resulting in a problem of low process efficiency. Also, in general, wafers are grouped into lots and may be processed, and different processes may be performed according to groups. For example, only a coating process may be performed on the wafer of the first group, and only a developing process may be performed on the wafer of the second group. Alternatively, only the coating process is performed on the wafer of the first group and the wafer of the second group, and these processes may be performed with different recipes. When cassettes 10 in which different groups of wafers are accommodated are placed in the holder 120, after the process is completed for the first group of wafers, the second group of wafers is transferred to the coating and developing unit 200. However, when the equipment shown in the present embodiment is used, since the process is performed on wafers belonging to different groups at the same time, the waiting time of the index robot 144 is short, thereby improving process efficiency.

4 is a flowchart sequentially showing an example of how wafers are transferred by the index robot 144 using the facilities of this embodiment. The wafers of the first group are housed in the first cassette, the wafers of the second group are housed in the second cassette, the first process is performed on the wafers of the first group, and the second process on the wafers of the second group. This is done. When using the facility shown in Figure 1, both the first process and the second process may be an application process or a development process. In addition, the first process and the second process may be performed by the same recipe, optionally the process may be performed by another recipe. Optionally, the first process may be an application process and the second process may be a development process. When using the equipment shown in FIG. 3, the first process and the second process may be different from each other, the first process may be an application process, and the second process may be a development process. In the present embodiment, the apparatus shown in FIG. 1 is used, and a case where an application process is performed with different recipes on the wafers of the first group and the wafers of the second group will be described as an example. First, the first cassette and the second cassette are placed on the holder 120 of the index portion (step S22). The index robot 144 unloads the wafer from the first cassette and takes over to the first robot 260a of the lower chamber 200a (step S24). The index robot 144 immediately unloads the wafer from the second cassette and thus the upper chamber 200b. The robot is turned over to the second robot 260b (step S26). The index robot 144 repeats the above-described process sequentially and, upon completion of the process from the upper chamber 200b or the lower chamber 200a, loads the wafer back into the cassette (step S28). In the upper chamber 200b and the lower chamber 200a, the temperature, the processing time, and the like of each module are adjusted to fit the corresponding recipe. When the coating process is performed on the wafers of the first group and the developing process is performed on the wafers of the second group, the equipment shown in FIG. 1 or 3 may be selectively used.

5 is a flowchart sequentially showing another example of how wafers are transferred by the index robot 144 using the facilities of this embodiment. Herein, the equipment shown in FIG. 3 is used. First, the cassette 10 in which the wafers are accommodated is placed in the holder 120 of the index portion 100 (step S42). The index robot 144 unloads one wafer from the cassette 10 and transfers it to the lower chamber 200a (step S44). The index robot 144 then unloads the next wafer from the cassette 10 and transfers it to the upper chamber 200b (step S46). The index robot 144 sequentially repeats the above-described process until all the wafers accommodated in the cassette 10 are completed, and the process is completed from the upper chamber 200b or the lower chamber 200a. Then, the wafer 10 is loaded into the cassette again (step S48). In the upper chamber 200b and the lower chamber 200a, the same process is performed on the wafers with the same recipe.

In the present embodiment, the coating and developing unit 200 has been described as having an upper chamber 200b and a lower chamber 200a stacked in two layers. However, this is only an example, and the coating and developing unit 200 may be stacked in three or more layers. In this case, the index robot 144 may sequentially transfer wafers to the chambers disposed in the respective layers. . In addition, in the present embodiment, the case where only the coating process or the developing process is performed on the wafers is described as an example. However, when using the equipment shown in FIG. 4, the entire photolithography process may be performed using the same recipe or different recipes for a plurality of groups of wafers. (Including exposure process) can be carried out.

In the present embodiment, a description is given of an apparatus in which a photolithography process is performed, but the technical concept of the present invention is not limited thereto, and the same process as that of the index unit 100 in which one index robot 144 is installed may be performed. It can be applied to any facility consisting of a plurality of chambers.

According to the present invention, the same recipe or different recipes can be simultaneously performed on wafers grouped into the same or different groups, and the effect of improving the process efficiency by greatly reducing the waiting time of the index robot used therein There is.

1 is a plan view schematically showing a typical photolithography facility;

2 is a perspective view schematically showing a photolithography apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention;

3 is a plan view of a semiconductor manufacturing facility showing an example in which the arrangement of the modules is different from that in FIG.

4 is a flowchart sequentially showing an example of a substrate processing method according to an embodiment of the present invention; And

5 is a flowchart sequentially showing another example of the substrate processing method.

Explanation of symbols on the main parts of the drawings

100: index portion 144: index robot

200: coating and developing part 200a: upper chamber

200b: lower chamber 240a, 240b: module

300: interface unit 400: exposure unit

Claims (4)

A method of processing a substrate in a facility in which a plurality of cassettes each containing a substrate for each group are placed in an index portion, and chambers in which a plurality of process modules are arranged are stacked. The index robot placed in the index unit sequentially unloads the substrates from each of the cassettes one by one to transfer the substrates alternately to each of the chambers set to perform a predetermined process for each group. The method of claim 1, The substrate transferred to each of said chambers is subjected to a coating or developing process. The method of claim 2, Substrate transferred to each of the chambers is a substrate processing method, characterized in that the same process is performed with a different recipe (recipe). A method of processing a substrate in a facility in which cassettes containing a plurality of wafers are placed in an index portion, and chambers in which a plurality of process modules are arranged are stacked. The index robot placed on the index unit sequentially unloads the substrates one by one from the cassette to transfer the substrates alternately to the chambers.