JPH04293571A - Rotation processing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide the title apparatus capable of executing uniform processing as compared with conventional processing. CONSTITUTION:A heat insulating material 3 formed into a plate shape is provided to the contact part of the upper surface of a substrate holding part 2 with a semiconductor wafer 1. A flat plate-shaped member 4 having a plurality of fins 4a for accelerating heat exchange concentrically formed thereto is mounted on the under surface of the substrate holding part 2. The substrate holding part 2 is connected to a rotary motor 6 through a connection member 5 composed of a heat insulating material.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[Object of the invention]

0002

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a rotary processing apparatus.

0003

[Prior Art] Generally, fine circuit patterns for semiconductor devices are formed on substrates such as semiconductor wafers by photolithography technology using photoresists. Conventionally, a rotary coating device, a so-called spinner, has been widely used as a rotary processing device for coating a photoresist film with a uniform thickness.

That is, such a rotary coating apparatus includes a substrate holder that holds a substrate to be coated, such as a semiconductor wafer, using a vacuum chuck, for example, and a drive mechanism that rotates the semiconductor wafer together with the substrate holder. By rotating the semiconductor wafer at high speed, the photoresist solution supplied to approximately the center of the upper surface of the semiconductor wafer is diffused by centrifugal force, thereby forming a photoresist film of approximately uniform thickness over the entire surface of the semiconductor wafer.

[0005] Conventionally, in such a rotary coating device,
Efforts have been made to make the thickness of the photoresist film more uniform. For example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-110637, heat from the motor of the rotation drive mechanism is transferred to the semiconductor wafer on the vacuum chuck (substrate holder). A rotary coating apparatus has been proposed in which a heat insulating material is disposed between the vacuum chuck and the rotary drive mechanism in order to prevent the film thickness from changing due to temperature rise.

[0006]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in recent years, semiconductor devices have been rapidly becoming highly integrated, and their circuit patterns have become increasingly finer. For this reason, it is required to further improve processing precision in each manufacturing process of semiconductor devices. Therefore, it has been desired to develop a rotary coating apparatus that can perform a coating process with a uniform film thickness by controlling the temperature sufficiently, for example.

[0007] The present invention has been made in response to such conventional circumstances, and aims to provide a rotary processing apparatus that can perform processing more uniformly than in the past.

[Configuration of the invention]

[0009]

[Means for Solving the Problems] That is, the rotational processing apparatus of the present invention provides a rotational processing apparatus that includes a substrate holding section that holds a substrate to be processed, and a drive mechanism that rotates the substrate to be processed together with the substrate holding section. The apparatus is characterized in that a heat insulating material is disposed at at least a portion of the contact portion of the substrate holder with the substrate to be processed.

0010

[Function] According to detailed investigation by the present inventors, in a rotary coating device, when the coating process is repeated continuously, the solvent etc. in the photoresist solution coated on the semiconductor wafer etc. is vaporized. The heat gradually cools the substrate holder that comes into contact with the semiconductor wafer, and the next semiconductor wafer to be coated is placed on the cooled substrate holder, so that this semiconductor wafer comes into contact with the substrate holder. It has been found that this causes a temperature difference between the substrate holder and the peripheral edge of the semiconductor wafer that is not in contact with the substrate holder, resulting in uneven thickness of the photoresist film formed.

Therefore, in the rotary processing apparatus of the present invention, a heat insulating material is disposed on at least a portion of the contact portion of the substrate holder with the substrate to be processed to suppress cooling of the substrate holder and to prevent rotational drive. This allows processing to be performed at ambient temperature without being affected by heat from the mechanism, and allows for more uniform processing than in the past.

0012

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a spin coating apparatus for coating a semiconductor wafer with a photoresist solution will be described below with reference to the drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, the spin coating apparatus of this embodiment is provided with a disk-shaped substrate holder 2 that supports a semiconductor wafer 1, which is an object to be processed, or holds it by a vacuum chuck. ing. A first heat insulating material 3 (made by Delrin, for example) formed in, for example, a disk shape is provided at the contact portion of the upper surface of the substrate holder 2 with the semiconductor wafer 1 .

The lower surface of the substrate holder 2 is made of a material with high thermal conductivity to promote heat exchange with the surrounding atmosphere and keep the temperature of the substrate holder 2 almost equal to the surrounding atmosphere temperature. As a mechanism for this purpose, an aluminum disc-shaped member 4 having a triangular cross-sectional shape and a plurality of annular fins 4a formed concentrically is tightly attached to the heat insulating material 2. The fins 4a are provided to increase the surface area and contact area with the surrounding air, and may have any shape.

[0015] The upper end of a joining member 5 formed in a cylindrical shape from a second heat insulating material is connected to the center of the lower part of this substrate holding part 2, and the lower end of this joining member 5 is used for rotation of the drive mechanism. It is connected to the rotating shaft 6a of the motor 6. Incidentally, a vacuum exhaust channel 7 for a vacuum chuck is formed in the substrate holding section 2, the joining member 5, the rotating shaft 6a of the rotating motor 6, and the like. As mentioned above, the support member 2 is
The first heat insulating material 3, the disc-shaped member 4, and the second heat insulating material (
The joining members 5) are sequentially formed and attached in a laminated structure.

A cup 8 is provided around the substrate holder 2 so as to surround the semiconductor wafer 1 placed on the substrate holder 2. It is configured to prevent the supplied photoresist liquid from scattering around during rotation.

Furthermore, a photoresist liquid supply nozzle 9 is provided at the upper part of the substrate holding section 2, and this photoresist liquid supply nozzle 9 holds the substrate by a predetermined amount of the photoresist liquid in a resist bottle (not shown). It is configured so that it can be supplied to approximately the center of the upper surface of the semiconductor wafer 1 on the portion 2.

In the spin coating apparatus of this embodiment having the above configuration, a photoresist solution is applied to the semiconductor wafer 1 to form a photoresist film in the following manner.

That is, first, the semiconductor wafer 1 is placed at a predetermined position on the heat insulating material 3 of the substrate holder 2 using, for example, an automatic transfer device, and is evacuated by a vacuum pump (not shown) via the evacuation channel 7. By doing so, this semiconductor wafer 1 is suction-held on the heat insulating material 3 of the substrate holding section 2.

Next, a predetermined amount of photoresist liquid is supplied from the photoresist liquid supply nozzle 9 to the approximate center of the semiconductor wafer 1 on the substrate holder 2, and then the semiconductor wafer 1 is rotated by the rotation motor 6. By rotating at high speed, the photoresist solution is spread by centrifugal force, and the entire surface of the semiconductor wafer 1 is uniformly coated with the photoresist solution.

At this time, for example, the temperature of the semiconductor wafer 1 decreases slightly due to the vaporization of the solvent in the photoresist solution, but a heat insulating material 3 is provided between the semiconductor wafer 1 and the substrate holder 2 Therefore, even if a large number of semiconductor wafers 1 are coated continuously, the disk-shaped member 4 of the substrate holder 2 will not be cooled by the semiconductor wafers. Therefore, the semiconductor wafer 1 placed on the substrate holder 2 next will not be cooled by the substrate support member 2.

Note that, for example, if the heat insulating material 3 is not provided on the substrate holder 2 and the substrate holder 2 is cooled, the semiconductor wafer 1 to be placed next on the substrate holder 2 will be
Cooling occurs from the contact portion with the substrate holder 2. For this reason, the temperature becomes uneven between the contacted area, that is, the peripheral edge of the semiconductor wafer 1, and the contact area, that is, the center area of the semiconductor wafer 1, and the thickness of the photoresist film formed on the semiconductor wafer 1 becomes uneven. becomes.

On the other hand, according to the spin coating apparatus of this embodiment, such a non-uniform temperature condition does not occur on the semiconductor wafer 1, so that a photoresist film with a uniform thickness can be formed. .

Furthermore, in the rotary coating apparatus of this embodiment, since the joining member 5 made of a heat insulating material is provided between the rotary motor 6 and the substrate holder 2, the heat of the rotary motor 6 is dissipated. It is possible to suppress transmission to the substrate holding part 2,
Furthermore, since the disk-shaped two members 4 on the lower surface of the substrate holding section 2 are provided with fins 4a for promoting heat exchange with the surrounding atmosphere, the temperature of the substrate holding section 2 can be adjusted to approximately the surrounding atmospheric temperature. For example, the temperature can be maintained at the same temperature as 23° C.), and a photoresist film with a more uniform thickness can be formed. In this case, since the substrate holder 2 is maintained at approximately the ambient temperature, for example, the semiconductor wafer 1 and the photoresist liquid in the resist bottle supplied from the photoresist liquid supply nozzle 9 before being loaded onto the substrate holder 2 are Preferably, the temperature is adjusted to be equal to the ambient atmospheric temperature.

The present invention can also be applied to a developing device that rotates the semiconductor wafer 1 on the substrate holder 2 to shake off the developer and dry it. In this case as well, since the temperature of one surface of the semiconductor wafer becomes uniform, uniform development processing becomes possible. In addition, in the case of a developing device, the temperature of the developer in the developer bottle is measured and the developing time is adjusted according to the temperature of the developer, so that uniform development can be achieved without having to adjust the temperature of the developer. Development processing can be performed.

[0026]

As explained above, according to the rotary processing apparatus of the present invention, processing can be performed more uniformly than in the past.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of a spin coating apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Semiconductor wafer 2 Board holding part 3 Insulation material 4 Disc-shaped member 5　Joining member 6 Rotation motor 6a Rotating shaft 7 Vacuum exhaust channel 8 cups 9 Photoresist liquid supply nozzle

Claims (1)

[Claims] [Claim 1] A substrate holding section that holds a substrate to be processed;
The rotary processing apparatus includes a drive mechanism for rotating the substrate to be processed together with the substrate holder, characterized in that a heat insulating material is disposed on at least a portion of the contact portion of the substrate holder with the substrate to be processed. Rotary processing equipment.