JPS62189732A - Cleaning apparatus for semiconductor wafer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To simply clean a medicine unintentionally adhered to the mount and the periphery of a carrier hanger without mixing fine powder dust of a chuck mechanism in pure water by providing cleanser discharging means in the chuck mechanism. CONSTITUTION:To wash a medicine adhered to a carrier hanger 5 and a wafer 7 with pure water after cleanser cleaning is finished, the handle 51 of the hanger 5 is held again by a check mechanism 2, removed from a cleaning tank 3, the hanger 5 is fed by a hanger feeding machine 1 to be dipped in a cleaning tank 4 which contains pure water. Then, the hanger 5 is released from the mechanism 2, the mechanism 2 is stopped above the hanger 5, pure water is discharged from cleanser discharging means 6 to wash the medicine adhered unintentionally to the handle 51 and the periphery of the hanger 5. Simultaneously, the wafer is filled in and out the tank 4 to allow the water to overflow to the flange 41 of the tank 4.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a cleaning device for semiconductor wafers (hereinafter simply referred to as wafers) used in the cleaning process of semiconductor wafers (hereinafter referred to as wafers) in the manufacturing process of semiconductor devices. The present invention relates to a device including a cleaning liquid discharging means for spraying cleaning liquid onto a carrier hanger on which a wafer carrier containing wafers is mounted.

BACKGROUND ART For example, in the process of manufacturing semiconductor devices, when predetermined devices are sequentially formed on a wafer through various steps, a step of cleaning the wafer is interposed between each device forming step. In the wafer cleaning process, a suitable number of wafers are housed in a wafer carrier and are alternately immersed in a chemical bath and a pure water bath in the following manner: chemical solution, pure water, chemical solution, pure water, and so on. In such a method,
In order to immerse a plurality of wafer carriers in each cleaning tank at the same time, the wafer carriers are mounted on a carrier hanger 5 as shown in FIG. Generally, the materials are transferred and immersed in sequence.

The flow of the cleaning process will be explained. First, carrier hanger 5
The handle portion 51 of the wafer is held by the chuck mechanism of the hanger transfer machine, and the wafer is immersed in a chemical solution tank to clean the wafer with the chemical solution. In a chemical bath, it is both efficient and common to clean the wafer by heating the chemical solution at a constant temperature of about 80° C. to generate bubbles. Thereafter, the handle portion 51 of the carrier hanger 5 is held by the chuck mechanism again and the carrier hanger 5 is taken out from the chemical tank. The wafer is transported by a hanger transfer machine to a place where a pure water tank is located, and then the carrier hanger 5 is immersed in the pure water tank to wash away the chemical solution adhering to the wafer and the carrier hanger 5.

By the way, the amount of cleaning liquid in each cleaning tank is determined by the amount of cleaning liquid in the cleaning tank when the carrier hanger 5 is immersed in the cleaning tank so that the chuck mechanism does not touch the cleaning liquid in the cleaning tank when the carrier hanger 5 is immersed in the cleaning tank. The handle portion 51 of the carrier hanger 5 is exposed.

■('''゛ □Trust) However, since the air bubbles generated in the chemical tank burst on the surface of the chemical, the chemical suddenly adheres to the handle 51 of the carrier hanger 5 and its surroundings.Of course, as mentioned above, The chemical solution adhering to the carrier hanger 5 and the wafer is washed away in a pure water tank, but since the amount of pure water is also set as above, the carrier hanger 5
The chemical solution that accidentally adheres to the handle portion 51 and its surroundings cannot be washed away. If a chemical solution adheres to the carrier hanger 5 in this way, it is undesirable because it may react with a different chemical solution in the chemical solution tank to be immersed next and cause problems to the devices formed on the wafer.

Therefore, it is conceivable to increase the amount of pure water to wash away the chemical solution, but this would require a larger cleaning tank and the chuck mechanism of the hanger transfer machine would come into contact with the pure water 9 when the carrier hanger 5 is immersed. This is undesirable because fine dust from the chuck mechanism gets mixed into the pure water.

In this way, conflicting problems as explained above arise regarding setting the amount of pure water in the pure water tank.

The present invention was devised in view of the above circumstances, and it prevents minute dust from the chuck mechanism from being mixed into pure water.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a cleaning device for semiconductor wafers that can easily wash away chemical liquid that accidentally adheres to the handle portion of a carrier hanger and its surroundings.

The cleaning device for semiconductor wafers according to the present invention has a handle on the upper end side of a carrier hanger on which a wafer carrier in which an appropriate number of semiconductor wafers is stored is connected to a handle of a hanger transfer machine. A cleaning device for semiconductor wafers that is held by a chuck mechanism and sequentially transferred to and immersed in a plurality of cleaning tanks containing various cleaning solutions, wherein the cleaning solution is applied to the handle portion of the carrier hanger and its surroundings. A cleaning liquid discharge means is provided in the chuck mechanism.

When the cleaning liquid is discharged from the cleaning liquid discharge means, the cleaning liquid is applied to the handle portion of the carrier hanger and its surrounding area.

1. An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In the semiconductor wafer cleaning apparatus illustrated in FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 indicates a hanger transfer machine, and a chuck mechanism 2 is provided at the bottom of the hanger transfer machine. The hanger transfer #111 described here is designed to transfer the carrier hanger 5 (see FIG. 3) between two cleaning tanks 3.4 in which, for example, a chemical solution and pure water are stored separately. The hanger transfer machine 1 is always located at an intermediate point P above the cleaning tank 3.4, and is configured to be remotely controlled as appropriate so as to move along the path shown by the broken line. There is.

Now, as shown in FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b), the chuck mechanism 2 has operating rings 21 and 22 installed in parallel, respectively.
and a movable piece 23.24 which is fixed to and interlocks with the operating ring 21.22 and has a substantially inverted concave shape when viewed from the side.

A cleaning liquid discharge means 6 for discharging cleaning liquid is attached to this chuck mechanism 2. Said operating ring 21.2
2 are rotated around their respective axes, and when rotated in the direction of arrow A, the movable pieces 23 and 24 move in the direction of arrow B.
It can be rotated by a predetermined angle in the direction. Movable piece 23.
Each abutting surface of 24 has notches 23a and 24a in which an inverted convex opening is formed when the two abut against each other (see FIG. 2 (bl)).
24a holds the handle portion 51 on the upper end side of the carrier hanger 5 shown in FIG. In this embodiment, a cross-shaped shower pipe is used as the cleaning liquid discharge means 6, and the cleaning liquid discharge hole of the shower pipe opens downward, so that the cleaning liquid is discharged downward. . That is, the cleaning liquid discharging means 6 is attached to the chuck mechanism 2 so as to spray the cleaning liquid onto the handle portion 51 of the carrier hanger 5 and its surroundings.

A procedure for cleaning wafers using such a cleaning device will be described. A wafer carrier 8 containing about 20 to 30 wafers 7 is mounted on a carrier hanger 5. The handle part 51 of the carrier hanger 5 is held by the chuck mechanism 2, and the carrier hanger 5 is immersed in the cleaning tank 3 containing the chemical solution along the path as shown by the arrow, and then the carrier hanger 5 is released from the chuck mechanism 2. This chuck mechanism 2 is raised together with the hanger transfer machine 1 and returned to the intermediate point P. In this cleaning tank 3, the wafer 7 is cleaned by keeping the chemical solution at a constant temperature of about 80° C. and generating air bubbles. Therefore, the air bubbles inevitably burst on the surface of the chemical solution and cause unexpected damage to the handle portion 51 of the carrier hanger 5 and its surroundings. Adhesion is inevitable.

After finishing the chemical cleaning, in order to wash away the chemical adhering to the carrier hanger 5 and the wafer 7 with pure water, hold the handle 51 of the carrier hanger 5 again with the chuck mechanism 2, take it out from the cleaning tank 3, and transfer the hanger. The carrier hanger 5 is transferred by the machine 1 as shown by the arrow along the path indicated by the broken line to the cleaning tank 4 (a specific example is the fourth cleaning tank 4) containing pure water.
(as shown in the figure). Thereafter, the carrier hanger 5 is released from the chuck mechanism 2, the chuck mechanism 2 is stopped above the carrier hanger 5, pure water is discharged from the cleaning liquid discharge means 6, and the handle portion 51 of the carrier hanger 5 and Wash away any chemical solution that accidentally adheres to the area. At the same time, as shown in FIG. 4, pure water is put in and taken out from the bottom of the cleaning tank 4, and the carrier hanger is made to overflow into the flange 41 of the cleaning tank 4. 5 and the wafer 7 are washed away. In addition, in FIG. 4, the shower pipe 42 of the cleaning tank 4 is used to spray pure water onto the wafer 7 when taking out the pure water.

Through these steps, chemical solution - pure water → chemical solution - pure water...
The wafer is repeatedly cleaned with various chemical solutions many times.

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the chuck mechanism 2 described in the above embodiment, and it goes without saying that the cleaning liquid discharge means 6 is not limited to only the shower piping.

The cleaning device for semiconductor wafers of the present invention is configured so that the cleaning aE solution is sprayed onto the handle portion of the carrier hanger and its surroundings by a cleaning solution discharge means provided in the chuck mechanism. Therefore, when the carrier hanger is transferred from a cleaning tank containing a chemical solution to a cleaning tank containing pure water, it is possible to not only wash away the chemical solution attached to the carrier hanger itself and the wafer, but also to store the pure water. To easily wash away a chemical solution accidentally attached to a handle part of a carrier hanger and its surroundings without increasing the size of a washing tank and without mixing minute dust of a chuck mechanism into pure water.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a cleaning device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2(a) is a perspective view showing the entire chuck mechanism of the same cleaning device, and FIG. 2 tb+ is a cleaning liquid discharge means for the chuck mechanism. FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a carrier hanger, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a specific example of a cleaning tank in which pure water is stored. 1... Hanger transfer machine 2... Chuck mechanism 3.4... Cleaning tank 5... Carrier hanger 51... Handle portion 6... Cleaning liquid discharge means 7... Wafer 8... Wafer career. Patent Applicant: ROHM Co., Ltd. Agent, Patent Attorney: Takaharu Ohnishi Figure 1

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) Hold the handle on the upper end side of the carrier hanger with a wafer carrier containing an appropriate number of semiconductor wafers using the chuck mechanism of the hanger transfer machine, and attach it to multiple cleaning tanks containing various cleaning solutions. A cleaning apparatus for semiconductor wafers in which the semiconductor wafers are sequentially transferred and immersed in the carrier hanger, wherein the chuck mechanism is provided with a cleaning liquid discharge means for spraying the cleaning liquid onto the handle portion of the carrier hanger and its surroundings. .