Patent ID: 11971661
Assignee: TOKYO ELECTRON LIMITED
Field: Semiconductors (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A substrate processing apparatus, comprising:
a first unit block including a first substrate transfer region extended in a left-right direction; a first processing module and a second processing module provided to respectively face a first side and a second side of the first substrate transfer region in the left-right direction;
and a first transfer mechanism and a second transfer mechanism respectively provided at the first side and the second side of the first substrate transfer region in the left-right direction and configured to deliver a substrate to the first processing module and the second processing module, respectively, wherein the first substrate transfer region has a first transfer path and a second transfer path that do not overlap each other when viewed from above, the first transfer mechanism transfers the substrate by moving only the first transfer path among the first and second transfer paths, and the second transfer mechanism transfers the substrate by moving only the second transfer path among the first and second transfer paths such that the first transfer mechanism and the second transfer mechanism have movement areas that do not overlap with each other within the first unit block;
a second unit block including a second substrate transfer region extended in the left-right direction; and a third transfer mechanism configured to transfer the substrate along the left-right direction in the second substrate transfer region, the second unit block being stacked on the first unit block;
a substrate carry-in/out block including first side placing units provided at a first side in the left-right direction of a stack of the unit blocks composed of the first unit block and the second unit block and configured to place therein the substrate to deliver the substrate to each of the first transfer mechanism and the third transfer mechanism, the first side placing units being provided to correspond to heights of the first unit block and the second unit block; and a carrier stage on which a carrier accommodating therein the substrate is placed;
a relay block including second side placing units provided at a second side in the left-right direction of the stack of the unit blocks and configured to place therein the substrate to deliver the substrate to each of the second transfer mechanism and the third transfer mechanism, the second side placing units being provided to correspond to the heights of the first unit block and the second unit block;
a second side transfer mechanism provided in the relay block to transfer the substrate between the second side placing units; and
a first side transfer mechanism provided in the substrate carry-in/out block to transfer the substrate between the carrier and each of the first side placing units, the first side transfer mechanism being configured to transfer the substrate, which is processed by the first processing module and is not processed by the second processing module, from one of the first side placing units corresponding to the height of the first unit block to one of the first side placing units corresponding to the height of the second unit block in order to transfer the substrate from a second side of the first unit block into the second processing module through the second unit block and the relay block in sequence.