JPH01244634A - Production device for semiconductor wafer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To remove wafer extraction operation to an unnecessary slot such as an empty slot, to quicken wafer extraction operation and to improve the throughput capacity of a device by previously identify whether or not semiconductor wafers are present regarding all slots in a wafer carrier and beforehand storing the presence data of the wafers. CONSTITUTION:A wafer carrier 2 is loaded onto a carrier elevating base 8 in a load locking chamber, whether or not semiconductor wafers 6 at every slot 7 of the wafer carrier 2 are present is identified by a wafer position sensing mechanism 9 while lifting the carrier elevating base 8, and wafer housing information is stored previously in a memory. The wafer carrier 8 is elevated or lowered so that the specified semiconductor wafer 6 and a conveying arm 5a shows a height at the same level, and the extraction work of the semiconductor wafer 6 is conducted. Since the presence data of the semiconductor wafers in each slot in the wafer carrier is stored beforehand in the memory at that time, the extraction operation of the semiconductor wafers need not be performed to all slots in the wafer carrier, and extraction operation is shortened.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Structure of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a semiconductor wafer manufacturing apparatus, and more particularly to a semiconductor wafer manufacturing apparatus equipped with a load lock chamber.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, in semiconductor manufacturing equipment such as CVD equipment,
There is a known structure in which a wafer carrier containing a large number of semiconductor wafers is stored in a load lock chamber that serves as a preliminary vacuum chamber, and then a predetermined semiconductor wafer is taken out from the wafer carrier by a transport device and transported into a processing chamber. ing.

By the way, in recent semiconductor manufacturing processes, in order to respond to high-mix, low-volume production, each semiconductor wafer is managed, and even semiconductor wafers in the same wafer carrier may be transferred to different manufacturing processes midway through. In this case, the wafer storage shelf (hereinafter referred to as slot) of the corresponding wafer carrier becomes empty. As described above, in recent semiconductor manufacturing processes, semiconductor wafers that undergo different processing are housed within the same carrier, so production management is carried out by associating each slot of the carrier with a semiconductor wafer. .

As described above, since some wafer carriers have empty slots that do not accommodate semiconductor wafers, in conventional semiconductor manufacturing equipment, during the process of transporting wafers from the rewafer carrier to the processing chamber by the wafer transport equipment, the wafer transport equipment It was detected whether or not a predetermined semiconductor wafer was mounted.

At this time, if no semiconductor wafer is mounted on the wafer transport device, it can be seen that the slot of the corresponding carrier is an empty slot. In this way, the presence or absence of semiconductor wafers is confirmed in all slots of the carrier, and this information is stored, and after the processing is completed, the semiconductor wafers are accommodated in the original slots.

(Problem to be Solved by the Invention) However, in the conventional semiconductor manufacturing apparatus as described above, in order to confirm the presence or absence of a semiconductor wafer, the wafer transport device must be operated even for empty slots. Therefore, the wafer transfer device is operated for all slots.

Such a wafer detection operation has the problem of causing a decrease in the speed at which the semiconductor wafer is taken out from the carrier, resulting in a decrease in the throughput of the entire apparatus.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and by checking in advance the presence or absence of semiconductor wafers in all slots of a wafer carrier and storing this information, unnecessary slots, such as empty slots, can be It eliminates the wafer unloading operation and speeds up the wafer unloading process.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a semiconductor wafer manufacturing apparatus that improves the throughput of the apparatus.

[Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving the Problems) A semiconductor wafer manufacturing apparatus of the present invention stores a wafer carrier containing a large number of semiconductor wafers in a load lock chamber, and transports a predetermined semiconductor wafer from the wafer carrier. A semiconductor wafer manufacturing apparatus that transports and processes semiconductor wafers into a processing chamber by a mechanism includes: a wafer detection mechanism that detects in advance a storage position of a semiconductor wafer in the wafer carrier; and a storage mechanism that stores wafer position information of the wafer detection mechanism. , a transport control mechanism that controls the operation of the transport mechanism based on the storage mechanism.

(Function) By detecting and storing the storage status of semiconductor wafers in the wafer carrier in advance, unnecessary wafer unloading operations can be eliminated, wafer unloading work can be performed quickly, and the processing capacity of the entire device can be increased. It is possible to improve the

(Example) Hereinafter, an example in which the present invention is applied to a multi-chamber type CVD apparatus will be described with reference to the drawings.

A load-lock chamber 3 that accommodates wafer carriers 2 is disposed on both sides of the wafer transfer chamber 1 located in the center, and a load-lock chamber 3 that accommodates wafer carriers 2 is disposed on both sides of the wafer transfer chamber 1 located in the center. Three chambers 4 are arranged on the same circumference at angular intervals of approximately 90 degrees with the transfer chamber 1 as the center.

Processing in such semiconductor manufacturing equipment involves taking out one predetermined semiconductor wafer 6 from the wafer carrier 2 using a transfer device in the wafer transfer chamber 1, such as the transfer arm 5a, and transferring it to the transfer arm 5b on the chamber 4 side. Then, according to the content of the post-processing, the material is transferred to a predetermined chamber among the plurality of chambers 4 and processed. For example, after etching the natural oxide film on the surface in a first chamber, CVD treatment is performed in a second chamber to form a thin film, and then heat treatment is performed in a N2 gas atmosphere in a third chamber. I do.

The wafer carrier 2 accommodated in both load lock chambers 3 is
As shown in FIG. 2, it has a shelf-like structure, and each column (hereinafter referred to as a slot) 7 accommodates a semiconductor wafer 6, respectively.

The wafer carrier 2 is placed on a carrier elevating table 8, and when the carrier elevating table 8 is lowered, the wafer carrier 2 is mounted by a carrier transport mechanism (not shown). During processing, the wafer carrier 2 is raised so that the semiconductor wafer 6 to be processed and the transfer arm 5a of the wafer transfer mechanism are at the same level, and the wafer carrier 2 is taken out.

Further, along the hoisting path of the carrier hoisting table 8, a wafer position detection mechanism 9 such as a photo sensor is disposed facing each other so as to horizontally or diagonally cross the hoisting path of the carrier hoisting table 8. With this wafer position detection mechanism 9, the presence or absence of a semiconductor wafer 6 in each slot 7 of the wafer carrier 2 can be detected when the wafer carrier is moved up and down.

The wafer position information detected by the wafer position detection mechanism 9 is stored in the wafer accommodation information storage mechanism 11 of the apparatus control section 10.
Based on the stored wafer accommodation information, the transport system control mechanism 12 controls the operation of the transport arm 5a of the transport mechanism.

In such a CVD apparatus, after the wafer carrier 2 is mounted on the carrier lifting table 8 in the load lock chamber 3, the wafer position detection mechanism 9 detects each slot 7 of the wafer carrier 2 without raising the carrier lifting table 8. semiconductor wafer 6
The presence or absence of the wafer is detected and the wafer accommodation information is stored in the storage mechanism 11.

After storing the wafer accommodation information in all the slots of the wafer carrier 2 in this way, the wafer carrier 8 is raised and lowered so that a predetermined semiconductor wafer 6 and the transfer arm 5a are at the same height, and the semiconductor wafer 6 is taken out. .

At this time, since the presence or absence of a semiconductor wafer in each slot of the wafer carrier is stored in advance in the storage mechanism,
Semiconductor wafers can be taken out by skipping empty slots, and there is no need to take out semiconductor wafers from all slots of the wafer carrier as in the conventional case, thereby shortening the taking-out operation. Further, even when storing a semiconductor wafer that has been processed into the original slot, the wafer carrier can be moved up and down in advance based on the wafer storage information, so that the wafer storage work can be carried out quickly.

By the way, in the above embodiment, the wafer position detection mechanism 9 is fixed and the wafer carrier 2 is raised and lowered to check the presence or absence of a semiconductor wafer. However, the wafer position detection mechanism 9 may be configured to be raised and lowered, Any structure may be used as long as it is a means for relatively moving the wafer and the wafer detection mechanism.

Further, the present invention can be applied to semiconductor manufacturing equipment other than CVD equipment, and can be applied to any semiconductor manufacturing equipment having a load lock chamber, such as an ion implantation equipment or a sputtering equipment.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the semiconductor sea urchin 11 manufacturing apparatus of the present invention, the semiconductor sea urchin 1 accommodated in the sea urchin/1 carrier in the load lock chamber can be smoothly taken out and accommodated.
This can be done quickly, and the work efficiency of the entire device can be improved.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the device configuration of an embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a multi-chamber type CVD device, FIG. 2(a) is a plan view showing the configuration of the load lock chamber in FIG. 1, and FIG. (b
) is its front view. 2...Wafer carrier, 3...Load lock chamber, 4...Chamber, 5...Uni 11 transfer arm, 6...Semiconductor Wafer, 8.
...Carrier lifting mechanism, 9...Wafer detection mechanism, 10...Device control unit, 11...
- Storage mechanism, 12...transport system control mechanism. Applicant Chiru Parian Co., Ltd. Agent Patent Attorney Sasa Suyama - (a)

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A semiconductor wafer manufacturing apparatus in which a wafer carrier containing a large number of semiconductor wafers is accommodated in a load lock chamber, and a predetermined semiconductor wafer is transferred from the wafer carrier into a processing chamber by a transfer mechanism for processing, comprising: a wafer detection mechanism that detects in advance the accommodation position of a semiconductor wafer in a wafer carrier; a storage mechanism that stores wafer position information of the wafer detection mechanism; and a transfer control mechanism that controls the operation of the transfer mechanism based on the storage mechanism. A semiconductor wafer manufacturing device characterized by comprising: