Chemical mechanical polishing equipment and wafer exchange mechanism thereof as well as wafer conveying method

Abstract

The invention discloses a chemical mechanical polishing equipment. The chemical mechanical polishing equipment comprises front-end wafer storage equipment, a polishing unit and a cleaning unit, wherein the wafer exchange mechanism is arranged in the cleaning unit, the wafer exchange mechanism comprises at least one wafer storage box to be polished and at least one wafer storage box to be cleaned,wherein the at least one wafer storage box to be polished and the at least one wafer storage box to be cleaned are arranged in an overlapped mode in the vertical direction; and the wafer storage box to be polished is horizontally arranged, after the front-end mechanical arm takes out a wafer in the horizontally-arranged front-end wafer storage box, the wafer is horizontally placed in the wafer storage box to be polished in the wafer exchange mechanism of the cleaning unit, after the wafer in the to be polished wafer storage box which is horizontally placed is horizontally taken out by a transmission wet wafer mechanical arm, the wafer is horizontally placed on a polishing module of a polishing module to wait for polishing treatment. According to the equipment, the mechanism and the method,the stability of wafer transmission is improved, the freedom degree of the mechanical arm in the front-end wafer storage device and the mechanical arm in the polishing unit are reduced, the cost is reduced, and the storage space is saved.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to the field of semiconductor manufacturing, in particular to chemical mechanical polishing equipment, a wafer exchange mechanism and a wafer transmission method thereof. Background technique [0002] In existing CMP (Chemical Mechanical Planarization, chemical mechanical polishing) equipment, in order to save space, the wafer storage boxes to be cleaned and the wafer storage boxes to be polished in the cleaning unit are vertically arranged side by side. In the transfer process of CMP equipment, the manipulator in the front-end wafer storage device first grabs the wafer horizontally from the horizontal wafer storage box and then vertically puts it into the temporary wafer storage box to be polished in the cleaning unit. Storage from horizontal to vertical requires that the manipulator in the front-end wafer storage device has the function of flipping the wafer from horizontal to vertical. The cost of front-end wafer storage equip...

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Problems solved by technology

The cost of front-end wafer storage equipment is higher due to the increased degree of freedom of the transfer manipulator

Moreover, the turning process requires a certain amount of space. In order to avoid other equipment in the relatively narrow space, the manipulator will generate additional avoidance actions, thereby increasing the error probability and working time of the manipulator.

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