JPH10275767A - Exposure equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To minimize the influence of a part of a heat source of an exposure apparatus main body in a chamber and suppress vibration of the exposure apparatus main body caused by a sound of an air conditioning unit. A chamber (12) is divided into a main compartment (44) and a sub compartment (46) by a partition (42).
6 includes an illumination system 16 including a mercury lamp 16a as a heat source.
Are stored in the main compartment 44, and the other main parts of the exposure apparatus main body 14 are stored. The partition 42 is
Since it is formed of a material having high heat insulation and good sound transmission, the heat generated by the mercury lamp 16a in the sub-compartment chamber 46 does not affect the main compartment 44 side.
Pressure fluctuation caused by the sound generated from the blower 58
Even when the exposure occurs in the main chamber 2, the main chamber 44 and the sub chamber 46 uniformly vary, so that the partial vibration of the exposure apparatus main body 14 is eliminated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an exposure apparatus,
More specifically, the present invention relates to an exposure apparatus used when manufacturing a semiconductor element, a liquid crystal display element, an imaging element (such as a CCD), a thin film magnetic head, and the like by a photolithography process.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when a semiconductor device or a liquid crystal display device is manufactured by a photolithography process, a pattern of a mask or a reticle (hereinafter, collectively referred to as a “reticle”) is coated with a photosensitive material such as a photoresist. An exposure apparatus (stepper or the like) for exposing and transferring each shot area on a wafer or a glass plate or the like (hereinafter, collectively referred to as a “wafer”) is used.

[0003] In recent years, along with the advancement of finer patterns in accordance with the higher integration of semiconductor elements, these exposure apparatuses have extremely high image forming performance and superimposition accuracy between circuit element layers. Is coming to be required.

Usually, this type of exposure apparatus, particularly, an ultra-large scale integration (ULSI) having a high degree of integration.
In a projection exposure apparatus used for manufacturing a liquid crystal display element having a high density and high density, it is necessary to maintain the temperature and humidity of the entire apparatus with high accuracy and to keep the degree of cleanness high. Therefore, in this type of exposure apparatus, as shown in FIG. 2, the entire exposure apparatus main body 74 for performing exposure is usually installed in an environment chamber (hereinafter, referred to as “chamber”) 72. In order to maintain the cleanness of the inside of the chamber 72, it is necessary to maintain a positive pressure on the outside as a whole so as to prevent air with poor cleanness from entering from the outside, and therefore it is necessary to provide appropriate rigidity. The wall is usually 1
It is composed of a steel plate or an aluminum alloy plate of about 2 mm.

In this type of exposure apparatus, as shown in FIG. 2, a light source 76a which consumes a large amount of electric power, such as a mercury lamp, is generally used as an exposure light source. Is the largest heat source.
Therefore, it is common to cover the light source 76a with the cover of the illumination system 76 and exhaust the inside of the cover.

In FIG. 2, an exposure apparatus main body 74 is provided.
Are an illumination system 76 that illuminates the reticle R with exposure light from the light source 76a, a projection optical system PL that projects an image of the pattern of the reticle R onto the wafer W, and Y, X, and Z that hold the wafer W.
Stage 82 and X stage 8 that move in the respective directions
4, a Z stage 86 and the like.

[0007]

As described above, in the conventional projection exposure apparatus, as shown in FIG.
6a is installed inside the environmental chamber 72, and the light source 76
a is covered with the cover of the illumination system 76 and the inside air is exhausted so that the influence of the heat generated by the light source 76a is not affected outside the cover (that is, inside the chamber 72). It is difficult to completely eliminate the influence of heat, and in order to completely shut off the influence of heat, liquid cooling and the like are required in addition to the exhaust in the cover, which has the disadvantage of causing a significant increase in cost. .

As a means for remedying such inconvenience, as shown in FIG. 3, the illumination system 76 containing the light source 76a is mounted on the main body column 90 via the support member 92 and includes the light source 76a. It is also conceivable that the influence of the heat from the light source 76a does not reach the inside of the chamber 72 by exposing only a part of the illumination system 76 to the outside of the environmental chamber 72 in such a manner as to protrude outside the environmental chamber 72.

However, in such a case, the sound generated by a blower fan of a blower driven in a machine room (not shown) provided in the chamber 72 provided in the chamber 72 generates the duct 102, the plenum 96, and the ULPA from the machine room side. Filter (Ultr
a Low Penetration Air-filter) 98 is transmitted to the chamber 72 through the air sent into the chamber 72, and in the chamber 72, pressure fluctuation mainly caused by the sound generated by the fan occurs. Since the pressure fluctuation does not occur in a portion including the light source 76a outside the light source 72, a large excitation force acts on the illumination system 76 due to a pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the chamber, and the illumination system 76 is supported by the excitation force. There is an inconvenience that the exposure apparatus main body 74 including the column 90 vibrates greatly via the support member 92.

The present invention has been made under such circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to minimize the influence of a part of a heat source of an exposure apparatus main body in a chamber and to provide an air conditioning unit. It is an object of the present invention to provide an exposure apparatus capable of suppressing the vibration of the exposure apparatus main body caused by the sound of a blower fan or the like.

Another object of the present invention is to eliminate the influence of heat due to the illumination light source of the exposure apparatus main body.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an exposure apparatus capable of preventing vibration of an exposure apparatus main body caused by a sound of a fan or the like of an air conditioner.

[0012]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an exposure apparatus main body (1) housed in a chamber (12).
4) and an air-conditioning unit (5) for air-conditioning the inside of the chamber (12).
2, 54, 56, 58),
The interior of the chamber (12) is filled with the exposure apparatus body (14).
A main compartment (44) for storing a main part of the first compartment and at least one sub compartment (46) in contact with the main compartment (44), a partition wall (42) having high heat insulation and good sound transmission. And a portion including a heat source of a part of the exposure apparatus main body (14) is housed in the sub-compartment chamber (46).

According to this, the inside of the chamber is divided into a main compartment and a sub-compartment via a partition having high heat insulation and good sound transmission, and the main compartment is provided with a main part of the main body of the exposure apparatus. The main compartment of the main exposure chamber is affected by the heat of the heat source due to the heat insulation effect of the partition walls. And the partition walls have good sound permeability, so that the pressure fluctuation due to the sound generated by the blower fan or the like in the air conditioner becomes uniform between the main compartment and the sub compartment, and Generation of vibration of the exposure apparatus main body is suppressed.
Therefore, it is possible to minimize the influence in the chamber due to a part of the heat source of the exposure apparatus main body, and to suppress the vibration of the exposure apparatus main body caused by the sound of the blower fan of the air conditioner.

In this case, the portion accommodated in the sub-compartment chamber is a portion including a heat source of a part of the exposure apparatus main body.
Although the type of the heat source is not particularly limited, as in the second aspect of the invention, the portion of the exposure apparatus main body (14) including a part of the heat source includes an illumination system (16a) including an illumination light source (16a) of the exposure apparatus. ) May be part of it. In such a case, the main compartment stores the main part of the exposure apparatus main body, and the sub-compartment houses a part of the illumination system including the illumination light source, which is the heat source having the largest heat generation in the exposure apparatus. Therefore, the heat of the illumination light source hardly affects the main part of the exposure apparatus main body in the main compartment due to the heat insulation effect of the partition, and the vibration of the exposure apparatus main body due to the sound due to the function of the partition. Generation is suppressed. Therefore, the vibration of the exposure apparatus main body due to the sound of the air blower fan or the like of the air conditioner can be prevented while eliminating the influence of heat by the illumination light source of the exposure apparatus main body.

[0015]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.
It will be described based on.

FIG. 1 shows an exposure apparatus 10 according to one embodiment.
Is schematically shown. This exposure apparatus 10
The apparatus includes a chamber 12 in which the exposure apparatus main body 14 is housed, and a machine room 50 in which an air conditioning unit (which will be described in detail later) is provided.

The wall surface of the chamber 12 is, as described above,
It is made of a steel plate or an aluminum alloy plate of about 1 to 2 mm in order to provide appropriate rigidity because it is necessary to maintain a positive pressure on the outside. In the present embodiment, the inside of the chamber 12 is divided into a main compartment 44 and a sub compartment 46 via a partition 42. Specifically, the partition 42 is formed as shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 1, an illumination system 1 including a mercury lamp 16a as an illumination light source that is the largest heat source of the exposure apparatus main body 14.
6 and the other main parts of the exposure apparatus main body.

The partition 42 is made of a material having high heat insulation and good sound transmission. Normal,
In general, a material having high heat insulation also has high sound insulation, but in the present embodiment, a material having both high heat insulation and sound permeability, which is difficult to achieve, for example, a resin such as a vinyl sheet. The partition 42 is formed of a lightweight and thin material of the system. For this reason, there is no influence of heat due to convection between the main compartment 44 and the sub-compartment 46 partitioned by the partition 42, and a thin resin material has good sound transmission. Therefore, pressure fluctuations due to sound occur uniformly. In order to further improve the heat insulating property of the partition 42, the vinyl sheet may be doubled (or may be triple or more) to sandwich an air layer between the vinyl sheets, or to reflect the surface of the vinyl sheet with an aluminum coat or the like. By forming the surface and reflecting the radiant heat, the heat insulating effect can be further enhanced while maintaining the sound transmission.

The exposure apparatus main body 14 has a mercury lamp 16a that emits exposure light. The exposure light from the mercury lamp 16a uniformly forms a reticle R on which a circuit pattern is formed through various optical elements (not shown). Illumination system 16 for illumination
A projection optical system PL for projecting and forming the pattern of the reticle R on the exposure surface of the wafer W, and a stage device for positioning the wafer W in the XYZ three-axis directions. The stage device includes a Y stage 22 that can move in a Y direction (a direction perpendicular to the paper surface of FIG. 1) on a surface plate 28 that is horizontally held on a floor via a vibration isolation table 34,
An X stage 24 movable in an X direction (left and right directions in FIG. 1) orthogonal to the Y direction on the X stage 2;
And a Z stage 26 mounted on the X stage 4 and capable of minutely moving in the Z direction orthogonal to the XY plane.
A wafer W as a photosensitive substrate is suction-held on a wafer holder 6 via a wafer holder (not shown). The projection optical system PL is supported via a column 30 provided on a base 28, and the illumination system 16 is supported on the column 30 via a support member 32.

In the exposure apparatus 10 of the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, the chamber 12 in which the exposure apparatus main body 14 is housed and the machine room 50 in which an air-conditioning unit described later is provided are connected to a duct 60. And a return duct 62, and air is sent from the machine room 50 side to the main compartment 44 and the sub-compartment 46 in the chamber 12 via the duct 60, and the air is supplied to the main compartment 44 and the sub-compartment 46. After passing through the chamber 46 as shown by the arrow, it returns to the machine room via the return duct 62, and the temperature inside the main compartment 44 and the sub-compartment 46 is highly accurate (specifically, the target (Set temperature ± 0.01 ° C)
High cleanliness is maintained.

More specifically, inside the machine room 50, a cooling heat exchanger 52, a refrigerator 54 for supplying a refrigerant to the cooling heat exchanger 52, a heater 56, a blower 58 and the like are provided. These components constitute an air conditioner that supplies air whose temperature has been adjusted. Here, the operation of the air-conditioning unit will be briefly described. The air recovered from the chamber 12 side via the return duct 62 together with the external air taken in from an air intake port (not shown) is cooled by the cooling exchanger 52 in a predetermined manner. Cooled to a temperature, the air is heated by the heater 56 to the control target temperature, and the air adjusted to the target temperature in this way is blown into the chamber 12 through the duct by the blower 58. The amount of heat generated by the heater 56 is feedback-controlled by a temperature sensor (not shown) and a temperature controller based on a preset target value. Further, as the blower 58 described above,
Various blowers such as a centrifugal fan such as a turbo fan and a radial fan and a sirocco fan can be used.

On the other hand, a plenum 36 as a front chamber communicating with the duct 60 and the plenum 3
6 and a ULPA filter (Ultra Low Penetration Air-filter) disposed at the boundary between the main compartment 44 and the sub compartment 46.
filter) 38 is provided. And the duct 60
After the air supplied into the chamber 12 through the plenum 38 once fills the plenum 38, dust in the air is reduced to ULPA.
It is removed by the filter 38. Then, the clean air whose temperature has been adjusted is blown out from the entire ULPA filter 38 at a substantially uniform density, and the exposure apparatus main body 1
4 is supplied to the inside of the main compartment 44 and the sub compartment 46 in which it is stored.

The main compartment 44 and the sub compartment 4
The main compartment 44 and the sub-compartment 46 are kept in a clean and highly temperature-controlled state by the circulation path in which the air supplied into the compartment 6 returns to the machine room 50 again via the return duct 62. It is designed to drip. For this reason, the exposure apparatus main body 14 always performs highly accurate exposure.

By the way, it is known that the vibration generated in the exposure apparatus main body 14 during the exposure lowers the overlay accuracy of the circuit pattern and deteriorates the projected image. In particular, the vibration near the natural frequency of the entire structure of the exposure apparatus main body 14 has a large amplitude due to the resonance phenomenon.
This greatly affects the above-described reduction in the overlay accuracy.

Therefore, in order to reduce the vibration of the exposure apparatus main body 14, the vibration frequency inherent to the apparatus is increased,
It is necessary to reduce disturbance (excitation force from outside). Regarding the above, in the exposure apparatus 10 of the present embodiment, at the time of designing, the rigidity of the entire apparatus is increased as much as possible to increase the natural frequency of the apparatus. This is because, even if the vibration energy is the same, the amplitude of the vibration becomes larger as the frequency becomes lower, and the influence of the deterioration of the accuracy is great. Regarding the above, the exposure apparatus main body 1
As an anti-vibration measure against the vibration from the installation floor of No. 4, the influence is reduced by installing an anti-vibration table 34.

The blower 58 blows air toward the chamber 12 with a large amount of noise, but it is known that most of the noise is generated by the blower 58. Then, the noise generated by the blower 58 passes through the duct 60 and the plenum 3
6 and main compartment 44 and subcompartment 4 in chamber 12 via air fed through ULPA filter 38.
6, the mercury lamp 16 of the illumination system 16
and a main compartment 4 in which the main part of the exposure apparatus main body 14 is stored.
4 has good sound permeability, and therefore, regardless of the presence of the partition 42, the mechanical room 50
Pressure fluctuation occurs uniformly in the main compartment 44 and the sub compartment 46 due to the sound generated by the blower 58 inside. Therefore, there is no possibility that a part of the illumination system 16 vibrates at a different phase, and the vibration of the exposure apparatus main body 14 can be reduced.

On the other hand, since the partition wall 42 has a function of insulating the space between the sub-compartment chamber 46 and the main compartment 44, the heat generated from the mercury lamp 16a may flow toward the exposure apparatus main body 14 by convection or the like. As a result, inconveniences such as the occurrence of unnecessary temperature unevenness in the main compartment 46 can be reliably prevented, whereby the measurement error of an interferometer (not shown) that manages the position of the wafer W due to air fluctuations or the like can be prevented. Occurs,
As a result, it is possible to prevent exposure accuracy from deteriorating due to this.

As described above, according to the exposure apparatus 10 of the present embodiment, since the above-described partition wall 42 is provided in the chamber 12, the influence of heat generated from the mercury lamp 16a as a light source for illumination can be minimized. However, it is possible to minimize the occurrence of vibrations due to the sound of the blower 58 or the like, thereby improving the overlay accuracy when exposing the circuit pattern of the reticle R on the wafer W. Therefore, for example, an ultra-large LSI (U
The present invention exerts a great effect when the influence of heat of an illumination light source, vibration due to the sound of a blower, etc. is a serious problem as in the manufacture of an LSI).

In the above embodiment, the mercury lamp 16a, which is a light source for illuminating the
Although the description has been given of the case where a part of the illumination system 16 including the heat source is housed, a part of the exposure apparatus main body 16 including another heat source may be housed in the sub compartment 46. As another heat source, for example, there is a laser light source for wafer alignment (not shown). This laser light source for wafer alignment must be integrated with the main body of the exposure apparatus, but since it is a large heat source, it is desirable to arrange it so that its influence is minimized on the exposure accuracy. The invention can be suitably applied.

In the above-described embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, one sub-compartment 46 is formed in contact with the main compartment 44 by the partition 42, but the number of the sub-compartments 46 is limited to one. However, if there are a plurality of heat sources that need to be divided into the main compartment 44, the number and position may be set at positions corresponding to the heat sources by using a plurality of partition walls. In this case, the same effect as above can be obtained.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, similarly to the main compartment 44, the blower 58 of the air conditioner is also supplied to the sub-compartment 46 through the ULPA filter 38.
Air-conditioned by the air sent from
Since the air conditioning of the sub-compartment room 46 is not always an essential requirement,
The partition may be simply provided. The lighting system 16
Since the heat of the lamp, which is a light source for illumination, has been conventionally exhausted, there is no need to store heat even if air conditioning is not performed in the sub compartment 46.

[0032]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, the influence of a part of the heat source of the exposure apparatus main body in the chamber is minimized, and at the same time, the air blower fan of the air conditioner is used. There is an unprecedented excellent effect that vibration of the exposure apparatus main body due to sound can be suppressed.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, while eliminating the influence of heat from the illumination light source of the exposure apparatus body,
This has the effect of preventing vibration of the exposure apparatus main body due to the sound of a fan for the air conditioning unit or the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of an exposure apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a conventional exposure apparatus.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining a problem to be solved by the invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Exposure apparatus 12 Chamber 14 Exposure apparatus main body 16 Illumination system 16a Mercury lamp (light source) 42 Partition wall 44 Main compartment 46 Subcompartment 52 Cooling heat exchanger (part of air conditioning part) 54 Refrigerator (part of air conditioning part) ) 56 Heater (part of air conditioner) 58 Blower (part of air conditioner)

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An exposure apparatus comprising: an exposure apparatus main body housed in a chamber; and an air conditioner for air-conditioning the inside of the chamber, wherein: a main compartment for storing a main part of the exposure apparatus main body in the chamber; A partition having high heat insulation and a good sound transmission through a partition having at least one sub-compartment in contact with the main compartment, and the sub-compartment including a part including a heat source of a part of the exposure apparatus main body. An exposure apparatus characterized by being housed. 2. The exposure apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a part of the exposure apparatus main body including a heat source is a part of an illumination system including an illumination light source of the exposure apparatus.