Patent ID: 11929269
Assignee: TOKYO ELECTRON LIMITED
Field: Semiconductors (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H  G | IPC G  H

Claim 8:
9. A heat treatment apparatus comprising:
a processing container;
a substrate holder that holds a plurality of substrates substantially horizontally at predetermined intervals along a vertical direction in the processing container;
a plurality of heaters that are divided along the vertical direction and heat the substrate held in the processing container;
a plurality of temperature sensors provided corresponding to the plurality of heaters along the vertical direction; and
a control circuitry configured to execute a control process including:
measuring an output value of at least one of the temperature sensor and a virtual sensor while a predetermined process including a plurality of steps is in execution on the plurality of substrates in the processing container; and
calculating, after a first execution of the predetermined process is completed, a correction value for each of the plurality of steps of the predetermined process based on an output value of the temperature sensor and an output value of the virtual sensor during the first execution of the predetermined process, and storing the correction value in association with each of the plurality of steps of the predetermined process,

wherein in a second execution of the predetermined process after the first execution of the predetermined process is completed, the measuring includes:
measuring an output value of the temperature sensor while monitoring a failure of the temperature sensor;
in response to a failure of the temperature sensor during a first step of the plurality of steps, correcting the output value of the virtual sensor with the correction value calculated for the first step of the plurality of steps in the first execution of the predetermined process; and
switching from the measuring the output value of the temperature sensor to measuring the output value of the virtual sensor after the correcting the output value of the virtual sensor.