Patent ID: 7823597

Claim:
A substrate processing apparatus, comprising: a liquid supplier which supplies a liquid toward a surface of a substrate; a freezing unit which freezes a liquid film which is formed on the substrate surface by the supply of the liquid performed by the liquid supplier to form a lower layer frozen film; a lower layer film thickness adjuster which includes a rotating mechanism rotating the substrate, and adjusts, by rotating the substrate by means of the rotating mechanism, a thickness of the liquid film which is formed on the substrate surface by the supply of the liquid performed by the liquid supplier to a predetermined value; a storage unit which stores a number which is representative of a number of layers to be formed in an upper layer frozen film, which is to be formed in a layered structure on top of the lower layer frozen film; the lower layer frozen film being formed by the freezing of the liquid film, whose thickness is adjusted by the lower layer film thickness adjuster, performed by the freezing unit; the upper layer frozen film being formed by a supply of the liquid, performed by the liquid supplier, toward a surface of the lower layer frozen film and freezing of the supplied liquid performed by the freezing unit; a controller which is connected to said storage unit to receive said number from the storage unit and is configured to control the liquid supplier and the freezing unit to form the upper layer frozen film in a layered structure according to said number of layers stored in the storage unit; and a remover which removes all of the frozen films formed on the substrate surface, after the upper layer frozen film with said stored number of layers has been formed in a layered structure on top of the lower layer frozen film, wherein the liquid supplier includes a temperature adjuster which cools down the liquid to a temperature at which the supply of the liquid toward the surface of the lower layer frozen film performed by the liquid supplier does not melt the lower layer frozen film.