Rotatable Chucking Pins for Uniform Chemical Distribution
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Solution Overview
Problem
During semiconductor substrate processing, impurity particles on the substrate surface can cause defects due to uneven chemical distribution when using a substrate chucking system, as chemicals may fall back onto the substrate after colliding with chucking pins, leading to substrate cleaning errors.
Innovation Solution
A substrate chucking member with rotatable chucking pins and a rotation adjustment unit is used, allowing the substrate to be rotated and the chucking pins to adjust their position, ensuring even chemical distribution and preventing defects by varying the points of contact with the substrate.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If chucking pins are used to support the substrate during chemical processing, then the substrate can be securely held and positioned, but chemicals collide with the pins and fall back onto the substrate causing uneven chemical distribution and cleaning errors
Solution Approach 1:
The chucking pins are made rotatable around their own axes while the substrate rotates on the supporting plate. This dynamic configuration allows the pins to vary their contact points with the substrate continuously during processing, preventing chemicals from consistently falling back onto the same locations and ensuring more uniform chemical distribution across the substrate surface.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention introduces rotational movement in a new dimension - the chucking pins rotate around their own axes in addition to the substrate rotating on the supporting plate. This adds a rotational degree of freedom that changes the spatial relationship between the pins and substrate over time, allowing chemicals to distribute more evenly by preventing repeated impact at the same contact points.
2Device complexity
If the substrate is cleaned in a fixed position using chucking pins, then the processing setup is simple and stable, but chemicals accumulate at specific positions after colliding with the pins leading to cleaning errors
Solution Approach 1:
Rather than making the entire chucking system complex with multiple movable components, the invention simply makes the existing chucking pins rotatable. This minimal modification to the simple fixed-position setup adds rotational capability to the pins themselves, enabling uniform chemical distribution while maintaining the overall simplicity of the chucking system architecture.
3Reliability
If chucking pins are used to support the substrate edge, then the substrate is securely positioned, but the pins create obstacles that cause chemicals to fall back and create defects at substrate edges
Solution Approach 1:
The rotatable chucking pins continuously change their angular position relative to the substrate during processing. This dynamic movement prevents chemicals from consistently falling back onto the same edge locations where the pins contact the substrate, thereby reducing the formation of defects at substrate edges while maintaining secure positioning throughout the process.
Data Source
AI summary
A substrate chucking member includes a substrate supporting member and a rotation adjustment unit. The supporting member includes a rotatable supporting plate to load a substrate, and chucking pins disposed at the supporting plate for spacing the substrate off the top of the supporting plate by supporting the edge of the substrate from a side of the substrate. Each of the chucking pins is rotatable for rotating the substrate supported on the chucking pins. The rotation adjustment unit is disposed under the supporting plate for adjusting rotation of the chucking pins. During a process, since a substrate is rotated by the chucking pins to vary points of the substrate making contact with the chucking pins, positions of the substrate where a process liquid falls after colliding with the chucking pins can be continuously varied. Therefore, the substrate can be processed without defects at an end part of the substrate.