Patent ID: 7758340

Claim:
A heating device comprising: a processing vessel defining a flat heating chamber in which a substrate is subjected to a heating process and having an end wall provided with an opening through which the substrate is carried into and carried out of the heating chamber; a heating plate placed in the heating chamber; a cooling plate disposed contiguously with the end wall provided with the opening of the heating chamber to cool the substrate heated by the heating plate; flotation gas spouting ports, through which a gas is spouted obliquely upward toward either of opposite first and second ends of a substrate moving passage to float the substrate and to move the substrate, formed in the cooling plate and the heating plate and arranged along the substrate moving passage; a pushing member for applying pushing force to a front or a rear end, with respect to a moving direction in which the substrate is moved, of the floated substrate when the substrate is moved; and a driving mechanism for driving the pushing member, and a controller for controlling the driving mechanism, wherein the controller controls the driving mechanism so that the substrate is floated above the cooling plate and is moved to the heating plate for being subjected to a heating process at the heating chamber, and so that the substrate heat-processed at the heating chamber is moved back to the cooling plate, and the driving mechanism drives the pushing member: such that the pushing member applies pushing force to the substrate to move the substrate horizontally in a direction opposite to a gas spouting direction in which the gas is spouted through the flotation gas spouting ports, by moving the pushing member in the direction opposite to the gas spouting direction, against force exerted by the gas on the substrate, and such that a force is applied between the pushing member and the substrate during movement of the substrate horizontally in the gas spouting direction, in which the gas is spouted through the flotation gas spouting ports, by moving the pushing member in the gas spouting direction in a state where the substrate is pressed against the pushing member by the gas spouted through the flotation gas spouting ports.