Wafer airtight keeping unit

Abstract: A first aspect of the invention is to provide a wafer keeping facility comprising a wafer keeping box (10) composed of wafer keeping shelves (15, 16) having filters (20) at the rear portions thereof, a loading apparatus (70) having a vertically movable loading mechanism which is mounted thereon and travels along a rail disposed on a front passage before the wafer keeping shelves (15, 16), a fluid circulating device (23) for supplying inert gas to the rear portion of the wafer keeping shelves (15, 16) and generating flowing passage, which directs to the front passage through the filters (20), and exhaust outlets (30B, 31B), first and second path boxes (30, 31) provided at taking-in-and-out outlet of the wafer keeping box (10), a gas reservoir (40) for storing inert gas therein, a first gas supply pipe (41) having a first valve (51), the first gas supply pipe (41) extending from the gas reservoir (40) toward the first pass box (30), a second gas supply pipe (42) having a second valve (52), the second gas supply pipe (42) extending from the gas reservoir (40) toward the second pass box (31), and a fluid control device (50).

Description: The present invention relates to a wafer airtight keeping unit for keeping temporarily a wafer cassette. A conventional article keeping facility in a clean room is disclosed in JP-B-141561 (& JP-A-60 44 404). The article keeping facility comprises article keeping shelves having a plurality of partitioned accommodating spaces arranged vertically and laterally and a loading apparatus provided with an article taking-in-and-out mechanism which is movable vertically and laterally along a given route which is laid out on a central passage arranged between the article keeping shelves. The article keeping facility of this type is provided with an air supply device, which is disposed under the article keeping shelves, and the air supplied from the air supply device is cleaned through a filter and blown from the rear side of the article keeping shelves toward the loading apparatus so that dust is prevented from floating or staying at the side of the article keeping shelves. Since the loading apparatus mounts a lifting guide device and a lifting driving device for guiding the article taking-in-and-out mechanism on its self-propelled carriage, dust is generated due to abrasion, spreads toward the article keeping shelves and is attached to the semiconductor wafers etc. without being drawn under the floor side and removed therefrom. Accordingly, it is necessary to entirely cover both the lifting guide device and the lifting driving device while an air suction device is mounted at the lower side of the self-propelled carriage, whereby the dust generated within the cover is drawn downward and removed by the air suction device through the floor of the carriage. As mentioned above, the floating dust is prevented from attaching to the articles (semiconductor wafers accommodated in wafer cassettes) on the article keeping shelves by forming a clean air current from the rear portion of the article keeping shelves toward the central passage. As is evident from the conventional article keeping facility, a measure to prevent the dust is taken since the semiconductor wafer is apt to be easily damaged by the dust. However, it is also necessary to take into consideration formation of an oxide film caused by a spontaneous oxidation of a semiconductor IC involved in high integration of the semiconductor IC. Another example for a keeping unit in which carriers containing semiconductor wafers can be stored is given in US-A-4 986 715. The unit includes a stocker having shelves for storing said carriers. A fan serves to send air into the box-like compartments in which the carriers are stored, through filters. The objects are thus cleaned by the air provided by the fan. Again, formation of an oxide film caused by a spontaneous oxidation has not been considered. Figs. 5 and 6 are graphs disclosed in the "Super LSI ultra clean technology symposium" (Nov. 19, 1990) presented in the contribution of OOMI and SHIBATA under the title "Growth of the native oxide on cleaned silicon surfaces", which Fig. 5 shows a relation between an oxide thickness and time involved in forming of the oxide film on the surface of a silicon semiconductor wafer caused by spontaneous oxidation and Fig. 6 shows a relation between resistivity and time involved in forming oxide film. Fig. 5 shows that growth hate of the oxide film is increased after the lapse of 100 to 200 minutes while Fig. 6 shows that resistivity is abruptly increased in the situation of non-cleaning of the IC after the lapse of about 50 minutes. There is such a problem that high integrated IC is difficult to be manufactured because the oxide film is generated thereon by the spontaneous oxidation since the semiconductor wafer is normally kept for several hours to several days. As the semiconductor integrated circuit is further advanced to high integration, it is necessary to convey and move the wafer in the atmosphere of inert gas such as N 2 gas for restricting the oxide film caused by the spontaneous oxidation from growing. At present, the N 2 gas atmosphere is required to have a concentration of at least 10 ppm of O 2 and 100 ppm of H 2 O. To meet the demand of this atmosphere, the process of manufacturing a semiconductor device, which is conventionally carried out in a specific design clean room, has come to employ a mechanical interface device which is disclosed in JP-A-60143623 (& EP-A-0 138 473) in which the semiconductor wafers are retained within clean-air enclosures. Accordingly, it is necessary to keep temporarily therein the keeping unit (stocker), which keeps the semiconductor wafer always under the manufacturing atmosphere during the process of manufacturing the semiconductor device. However, the conventional stocker provided with a door is not airtight enough against a surrounding atmosphere so that an entire stocker per se communicates with the surrounding atmosphere every time the door is open, therefore, a large amount of manufacturing atmosphere such as an inert gas like N 2 gas has to be introduced into the stocker every time the stocker communicates with the surrounding atmosphere. Accordingly, there is a problem that a turbulence is generated in the stocker every time the large amount of inert gas is introduced into the stocker, which permits the dust in the stocker to float in the air, permits a concentration of the inert gas in each cassette housing room nonuniform and make the arrangement of the stocker complex and large sized. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a wafer airtight keeping unit which is capable of restraining the growth of the oxide film caused by the spontaneous oxidation during the keeping of the ICs, is capable of airtightly sealing the unit except a cassette housing room against an external atmosphere when a wafer cassette is taken in and out from the unit, and is capable of restricting the inert gas concentration from varying and the dust from floating in the other portions of wafer airtight keeping unit when the cassette is taken in and out from the unit, for thereby increasing the manufacturing yield of the semiconductor device compared with the conventional unit. A wafer airtight keeping unit in accordance with the present invention is set out in claim 1. A specific embodiment is disclosed in the dependent claim. Fig. 1 is a front view of a wafer airtight keeping unit according to an embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 2 is a lateral cross-sectional view of a partitioned room according to said embodiment; Fig. 3 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of the partitioned room according to said embodiment; Fig. 4 is a view of a front door of the partitioned room as viewed from the lateral side; Fig. 5 is a view showing a relation between oxide thickness and time involved in forming an oxide film caused by spontaneous oxidation of a silicon semiconductor wafer; and Fig. 6 is a view showing a relation between resistivity and time involved in forming an oxide film caused by spontaneous oxidation of a silicon semiconductor wafer. A wafer airtight keeping unit according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to Figs. 1 to 4. A wafer keeping unit 100, which is provided in a wafer keeping box, has a plurality of boxed shaped partitioned rooms 111 for accommodating wafer cassettes therein, as illustrated in Fig. 2. The partitioned rooms 111 are arranged vertically and laterally and open at the front sides thereof (at the side from which the wafer cassettes are taken in and out by the loading apparatus) which are provided with front doors 120. The partitioned room 111 has a filter 112A and a fluid passage 113A, which is defined between a left wall 111A and the filter 112A and also has a filter 112B and a fluid passage 113B, which is defined between a right wall 111B and the filter 112B. A wafer accommodating space (from which the wafer cassettes are taken in and out) is defined between both the filters 112A and 112B. A piping space 115 extends from a left wall 100A of the wafer keeping unit 100 to a right wall 100B of the same unit 100 between each wafer keeping shelf, as illustrated in Fig. 3. Disposed in the piping space 115 are a supply pipe 131A, which penetrates a bottom wall 111C of the partitioned room 111 and opens to the fluid supply passage 113A, and a gas discharge pipe 131B, which penetrates the bottom wall 111C of the partitioned room 111 and opens to the fluid discharge passage 113B. The gas supply pipe 131A is connected to an inert gas reservoir such as an N 2 gas cylinder which is disposed outside the wafer keeping unit 100, not shown, by way of a valve while a gas discharge pipe 131B opens outside the wafer keeping box by way of a discharge valve. A seal member 116 is provided at a periphery of each front door 120 of the partitioned room 111. The front door 120 has, as illustrated in Figs. 3 and 4, shafts 121 and 122, which respectively extend from one side thereof. The shaft 121 is received by a receiving member 117 protruding from the partitioned room 111 while the shaft 122 is connected to a motor 124 by way of a coupling 123. Four magnetic pins 141 protrude from each corner of rear surface of the front door 120. Each magnetic pin 141 can be attracted by each electromagnetic solenoid valve 142 disposed inside each partitioned room 111. The magnetic pin 141 and the electromagnetic solenoid valve 142 constitute an automatic locking mechanism for airtightly closing the front door 120. A play is defined between the shaft 122 and the coupling 123. In this arrangement of, air in all the wafer accommodating spaces 114 of all the partitioned rooms 111 is replaced by the inert gas before the wafer keeping unit 100 is used. For replacing air by the inert gas, the motor 124 of the front door 120 is driven to thereby close the front door 120 and to energize the electromagnetic solenoid valve 142 so that the automatic locking mechanism is operated. When the automatic locking mechanism is operated, the magnetic pin 141 is attracted toward the rear wall of the cassette accommodating space 114 so that the front door 120 is brought into strong contact with the opening of the partitioned room 111 by way of the seal member 116. As a result, the wafer accommodating space 114 is airtightly closed. Successively, the valve in each gas supply pipe 131A is full opened and the valve in each gas dischare pipe 131B is full opened, whereby the inert gas is supplied from the inert gas reservoir into the fluid passage 113A of the cassette accommodating space 114 through the gas supply pipe 131A. The inert gas supplied to the fluid supply passage 113A is introduced into the wafer accommodating space 114 through the filter 112A to thereby fill the wafer accommodating space 114. Air occupying the wafer accommodating space 114 passes the filter 112B and is expelled toward the fluid discharge passage 113B and flown into the gas discharge pipe 131B. Air flown into the gas discharge pipe 131B is discharged outside the wafer keeping box so that air in the wafer accommodating space 114 is replaced by the inert gas. After replacement of air by the inert gas, all the valves are closed. Since the concentration of the inert gas in the wafer accommodating space 114 decreases as time passes, the inert gas should be fresh supplied. To supply the inert gas fresh, it is necessary to provide a fluid control device for controlling the valves of the gas supply pipe 131A in the manner of opening the valves for a prescribed time at intervals of a given time, i.e. under the time control system or in the manner of opening the valves when the concentration of oxide in the cassette accommodating space 114 exceeds a prescribed value. The wafer cassette is taken in the cassette accommodating space 114 or taken out from the cassette accommodating space 114 after opening the front door 120 by unlocking the automatic locking mechanism of a specified partitioned room 111 and driving the motor 124 of the front door 120. It is possible to restrict oxidation of the semiconductor wafer from growing on the surface thereof when it is kept in the wafer accommodating room 114 since the wafer accommodating room 114 is under inert gas atmosphere excepting that the front door 120 is open. Even in a power cut, the wafer accommodating room 114 is kept airtight, which does not influence the semiconductor wafers. With the arrangement of the wafer airtight keeping unit according to the present invention, it is possible to restrict oxidation of the semiconductor wafer from growing on the surface thereof caused by spontaneous oxidation since each of the partitioned shelves of the wafer keeping units is provided with a door which is not open excepting the wafer cassettes are taken in or out therethrough, hence the cassettes accommodating room is always under inert gas atmosphere.

Claims: A wafer airtight keeping unit (100) having a plurality of partitioned shelves (111) from which semiconductor wafers can be taken in and out, wherein each of said partitioned shelves (111) is a box having an opening at the front thereof and comprises a first filter (112A) and a second filter (112B), a wafer accommodating room (114), a fluid supply passage (113A), and a fluid discharge passage (113B); said fluid supply passage (113A) and said fluid discharge passage (113B) are respectively separated from said wafer accommodating room (114) by said first and second filters (112A, 112B) and respectively communicate with said wafer accommodating room (114) through said first and second filters (112A, 112B); said fluid supply passage (113A) is connected to an end of a gas supply pipe (131A) to which inert gas, like N 2 gas, is supplied from an exterior fluid reservoir, and said fluid discharge passage (113B) communicates with a gas discharge pipe (131B); and each of said partitioned shelves (111) has a door (120) which can airtightly shut the opening of its respective partitioned shelf (111) and is closable by a closing mechanism. The wafer airtight keeping unit according to claim 1, wherein the closing mechanism is an automatic locking mechanism.

Inventors: HAYASHI MITSUHIRO, KAWANO HITOSHI, MORITA HIROMI, MORITA TERUYA, MURATA MASANAO, OKUNO ATSUSHI, TANAKA TSUYOSHI, TSUDA MASANORI, YAMASHITA TEPPEI, HAYASHI, MITSUHIRO, KAWANO, HITOSHI, MORITA, HIROMI, MORITA, TERUYA, MURATA, MASANAO, OKUNO, ATSUSHI, TANAKA, TSUYOSHI, TSUDA, MASANORI, YAMASHITA, TEPPEI, Hayashi, Mitsuhiro, c/o Ise Factory of Shinko, Kawano, Hitoshi, c/o Ise Factory of Shinko, Morita, Hiromi, c/o Ise Factory of Shinko, Morita, Teruya, c/o Ise Factory of Shinko, Murata, Masanao, c/o Ise Factory of Shinko, Okuno, Atsushi, c/o Ise Factory of Shinko, Tanaka, Tsuyoshi, c/o Ise Factory of Shinko, Tsuda, Masanori, c/o Ise Factory of Shinko, Yamashita, Teppei, c/o Ise Factory of Shinko
Applicants: SHINKO ELECTRIC CO LTD, SHINKO ELECTRIC CO. LTD.
Application year: 1992
Main classification: H01L21
IPC codes: H01L21