Apparatus for and method of processing substrate subjected to exposure process

Abstract

A substrate subjected to an exposure process by an exposure unit is transported into a cleaning processing unit in a substrate processing apparatus. An adjustment is made to the presence time (more specifically, the waiting time or the cleaning time) of the exposed substrate in the cleaning processing unit to adjust the instant of the end of a cleaning process so as to provide a constant time interval between the instant of the completion of the exposure process and the instant of the end of the cleaning process. Such adjustments provide a constant time interval between the instant of the completion of the exposure process and the instant of the start of a post-exposure bake process, and also provide a constant time interval between the, instant of the completion of the cleaning process and the instant of the start of the post-exposure bake process. This achieves further improvements in the line width uniformity of a pattern formed when a chemically amplified resist is used.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a method of processing a substrate such as a semiconductor substrate subjected to an exposure process, a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display device, a glass substrate for a photomask, a substrate for an optical disk and the like, and a substrate processing apparatus for executing the method. [0003] 2. Description of the Background Art [0004] As is well known, semiconductor and liquid crystal display products and the like are fabricated by performing a series of processes including cleaning, resist coating, exposure, development, etching, interlayer insulation film formation, heat treatment, dicing and the like on the above-mentioned substrate. An apparatus which performs a resist coating process on a substrate to transfer the substrate to an exposure unit and which receives an exposed substrate from the exposure unit to perform a development process on the exposed substrate,...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010] This provides a uniform processing history for the substrates, thereby further improving the line width uniformity of a pattern.

[0011] Preferably, the controller adjusts the instant at which the cleaning processing part completes the cleaning process to thereby provide the approximately constant first interprocess time interval and the approximately constant second interprocess time interval.

[0012] This provides a uniform processing history for the substrates easily with reliability.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately, some variations in line width still occur even if the time interval between the end of the exposure process and the start of the post-exposure bake process is made constant.

However, no particular consideration has conventionally been given to controlling this time interval.

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