Patent ID: 8740535

Claim:
A vacuum processing apparatus comprising: a vacuum transfer chamber; a vacuum transfer mechanism provided in the vacuum transfer chamber and configured to transfer a substrate in a vacuum atmosphere; a plurality of vacuum processing chambers connected to the vacuum transfer chamber and configured to perform a vacuum processing on the substrate; a load lock chamber connected to the vacuum transfer chamber; an atmospheric transfer chamber connected to the load lock chamber; an atmospheric transfer mechanism provided in the atmospheric transfer chamber and configured to transfer the substrate in an atmospheric atmosphere; an orienter configured to detect a position of the substrate in the atmospheric atmosphere, wherein the atmospheric transfer mechanism and the load lock chamber are aligned based on a detection result obtained by the orienter; a position detecting mechanism provided in the vacuum transfer chamber configured to detect a position of the substrate, wherein the vacuum transfer mechanism and the load lock chamber of the vacuum transfer mechanism are aligned based on a detection result obtained by the position detecting mechanism; and a control unit configured to align the atmospheric transfer mechanism and the load lock chamber by using the orienter, wherein the control unit is further configured to dispose the substrate at a position of the load lock chamber by using the atmospheric transfer mechanism aligned with respect to the load lock chamber by the orienter, wherein the control unit is further configured to transfer the substrate disposed at the position of the load lock chamber to the position detecting mechanism by the vacuum transfer mechanism to detect the position of the substrate, and wherein the control unit is further configured to perform position alignment of the vacuum transfer mechanism with respect to the load lock chamber by using the detection result obtained by the position detecting mechanism.