Vertical-type heat treating apparatus and workpiece transfer method

Abstract

An improved transfer mechanism (21) is provided for vertical heat treatment equipment. The transfer mechanism transfers a treating object W between a treating object storing container (carrier) (16) and a treating object holder (boat) (9), which holds a plurality of the treating objects at intervals in the vertical direction through a ring-shaped supporting board (15). The transfer mechanism (21) is provided with a plurality of substrate supports (20) arranged at prescribed intervals, and each substrate support (20) has a holding mechanism (28) to hold the treating object W at a lower side. Each holding mechanism (28) is provided with a fixed locking part (30), which is fixed at a leading edge part of the substrate support (20) and locks a front edge part of the treating object W, and a movable locking part (31), which is movably provided at a base edge part of the substrate support (20) and removably locks a rear edge part of the treating object W. A plurality of the treating objects W are quickly and surely transferred at the same time. A thickness of the substrate support is reduced by the constitution of the simple holding mechanism, an arrangement pitch of the ring-shaped supporting boards can be reduced, and a number of the object W to be treated which can be processed at one time in a heat treatment furnace is increased. Due to these factors, throughput is improved.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a vertical heat treatment apparatus and a method for transferring objects to be processed, and particularly to an improvement in a transfer mechanism capable of transferring a plurality of objects to be processed in batches to a holding tool having an annular support plate. Background technique [0002] The manufacture of semiconductor devices includes various heat treatments such as oxidation, diffusion, CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition), and annealing on an object to be processed (for example, a semiconductor wafer). As one type of heat treatment apparatus for carrying out these steps, a vertical heat treatment apparatus capable of heat treating a plurality of wafers at a time is used. [0003] The vertical heat treatment device comprises: a heat treatment furnace having a furnace mouth in the lower part; a lid body sealing the furnace mouth; a holding tool ( called a wafer boat); a lifting mechanism that lifts the abo...

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Problems solved by technology

[0007] Since the above-mentioned transfer mechanisms A and B can only transfer one wafer at a time, the transfer operation takes a long time, which is an important factor hindering the improvement of productivity.

In addition, since the thickness (dimension in the height direction) of the transfer mechanism is large due to its structure, it is necessary to increase the interval between the ring-shaped support plates holding the tool (for example, about 16mm)

Therefore, the maximum number of wafers (the number of wafers to be processed) placed on a holding tool of a predetermined size is 50, which hinders the improvement of productivity.

In addition, in the transfer mechanism B, the locking members arranged on the front end side and the base end side of the fork are movable, so a complicated structure must be attached to the fork, which increases the dimension in the height direction of the fork, resulting in , it is difficult to reduce the interval between the annular support plates holding the tool

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