JP2980181B2 - Bake oven - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a bake oven.
In particular, the present invention relates to a baking oven used in a baking and curing step performed after applying a photoresist to a processing substrate in a manufacturing process of a semiconductor element or a color liquid crystal display.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional bake oven, a shelf plate is fixed in a tank, and a front door is manually opened and closed. First, the operator opens the front door of the bake oven, places the cassettes or pallets containing the processing substrates one by one on the fixed shelf in the tank, closes the front door, and further sets the temperature in the tank to the set temperature. Until the processing time set by the timer, the front door is opened after the processing time has elapsed, and the cassette or pallet on the shelf is taken out.

[0003]

In the above-described conventional bake oven, a series of operations such as opening and closing the front door, loading / unloading a cassette or pallet storing a processing substrate, and baking are all performed manually. Therefore, a lot of man-hours were required, and it was necessary to continue monitoring work constantly.

Furthermore, in the conventional example, since the front door that covers the entire front surface is opened and closed, the temperature inside the bath when the front door is opened and closed changes drastically, and after the loading or unloading of the cassette or pallet is completed. It took a long time to recover the temperature in the bath.

[0005]

A bake oven according to the present invention has a plurality of shelves inside which are driven by a shelf drive mechanism, and allows articles at a height of one shelf to pass through a front door. An oven body having an opening / closing section of a size capable of carrying the cassette, a cassette or a pallet accommodating a processing substrate on a shelf board in the oven body, and a transport mechanism for unloading the cassette or pallet from the shelf board; And a sequence controller for operating the shelf drive mechanism, the transport mechanism, and the opening / closing unit in accordance with a predetermined procedure.

[0006]

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a side view showing a partial cross section of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a plan view thereof. From the previous step, a plurality of substrates 4 to be processed are put in the cassette 3 and sent to the load cassette station 1. The operator checks the processing lot and processing conditions, checks the display of the sequence controller 15 and the temperature controller 16,
Press the start switch. Thus, the operation described below is performed fully automatically.

First, the transfer robot 5 moves to a position facing the cassette 3 to be processed, and the robot fork 6 extends to a position below the cassette 3 in the load cassette station 1 and places it thereon. Next, the robot fork 6 returns to the origin, rotates 180 °, and faces the oven body 8.
Thereafter, the transfer robot 5 slides to the position where the cassette is set on the shelf 10 inside the oven body 8 and stops.

In the oven body 8, the shelf 1 is connected to each other by a flexible chain 12, is driven by a shelf drive motor 14, is guided by a guide rod 11, and moves up and down.
The temperature inside the oven main body 8 is maintained at a set temperature by the temperature controller 16. After the transfer robot 5 places the first cassette 3 and stops at the first loading position in front of the oven body 8, the shelf drive motor 14 lowers the uppermost shelf 10 to the lowermost position (by the lower limit switch). Stop).

The front portion of the oven body 8 is constituted by a front door 13 having a handle 17 and attached to a side surface so as to be freely opened and closed by a hinge 18. A heater 9 is embedded in the oven 8. Part of the front door 13 is opened,
Its opening is covered by a flapper valve 7.

When the uppermost shelf plate 10 is set at the lowermost position, the flapper valve 7 is opened and the first cassette 3 placed on the robot fork 6 on the transfer robot 5 is opened.
The oven body 8 is extended by the robot fork 6 being extended.
It is set on the shelf 10 inside. Next, the robot fork 6 returns to the origin, and the flapper valve 7 closes.

Hereinafter, the transfer robot 5 reciprocates between the load cassette station 1 and the oven body 8 and repeats the same operation. When the uppermost shelf 10 is filled, the shelf is raised by one stage by the shelf drive motor 14, and thereafter the carry-in to the second stage is continued.
The same operation is continued until the last cassette is loaded into the lowermost shelf. The transfer robot 5 can move the robot fork 6 up and down, and after unloading the lowermost cassette of the load cassette station 1,
The second and subsequent cassettes can be carried out.

When the last cassette 3 to be processed is set on the lowermost shelf 10, the robot fork 6 returns to the origin, the flapper valve 7 closes, and the processing timer is turned on.
And baking or curing is performed at the set temperature for the set time.

After the timer expires, the flapper valve 7 opens, the robot fork 6 extends, and the cassette 3 on the lowermost shelf 10 in the oven body 8 is placed. Next, the robot fork 6 returns to the origin, and the flapper valve closes. Thereafter, the transfer robot 5 rotates the robot fork 6 by 180 ° and slides to the first unload position of the unload cassette station 2 to stop.

Next, the robot fork 6 expands and carries the processed substrate 4 into the first cassette storage position of the unload cassette station 2. Hereinafter, the processed cassette 3 on the shelf 10 in the oven body 8 is repeatedly taken out to the unload station 2 by the same operation. Thus, the baking and curing operations are performed automatically.

Although the preferred embodiment has been described above,
The present invention is not limited to this, and various modifications are possible. For example, the cassette stations 1 and 2 can be moved up and down instead of moving the robot fork 6 up and down, and a wire can be used instead of the chain 12 to connect the shelf boards 10. Further, an N ₂ outlet is provided inside the flapper valve at the opening of the front door 13, and the N ₂ curtain makes it possible to further reduce a temperature change when the cassette 3 is attached or detached.

[0016]

As described above, the bake oven of the present invention is equipped with the robot transfer mechanism and the shelf drive mechanism, so that it can be fully automated and the number of work steps can be greatly reduced.

Further, since the flapper valve is provided on the front door, the temperature change at the time of attaching or detaching the cassette or the pallet, which was conventionally large, can be suppressed. Therefore, the temperature recovery time can be shortened, and the uniformity of the temperature in the bath can be improved, so that the baking and curing operations can be stably performed in the photoresist process, which can contribute to an improvement in yield.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing a partial cross-sectional view of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of one embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1: Load cassette station, 2: Unload cassette station, 3: Cassette, 4: Substrate,
5 ... transfer robot, 6 ... robot fork,
7: Flapper valve, 8: Oven body, 9
... heater, 10 ... shelf board, 11 ... guide rod, 12
... flexible chain, 13 ... front door, 14 ...
Shelf drive motor, 15 ... sequence controller,
16: temperature controller, 17: handle, 18
… Hinge.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. An oven body having a plurality of shelves driven by a shelf drive mechanism therein, and an opening / closing portion having a size such that an article having a height of one shelf can pass through a front door portion. A transport mechanism for loading a cassette or a pallet containing processed substrates onto a shelf in the oven body and unloading the cassette from the shelf, a temperature controller for controlling the temperature in the oven body, and the shelf A bake oven, comprising: a drive mechanism, the transport mechanism, and a sequence controller that operates the opening / closing unit according to a predetermined procedure.