Patent ID: 7063600

Claim:
A polishing apparatus for polishing a semiconductor wafer, comprising: a processing section including a polishing section for polishing a semiconductor wafer and a cleaning section for cleaning a polished semiconductor wafer; a receiving section for receiving at least one of wafer cassettes which supplies a semiconductor wafer to be processed to said processing section and/or receives a processed semiconductor wafer; a clean chamber disposed between said processing section and said receiving section for preventing a contaminated atmosphere in said processing section from affecting said receiving section; a load and unload section between said processing section and said receiving section; a first filter unit for cleaning air in said load and unload section while adjusting pressure of said load and unload section so as to be higher than pressure of a clean room in which said polishing apparatus is installed; and a second filter unit for cleaning air in said cleaning section while adjusting pressure of said cleaning section so as to be lower than the pressure of the clean room and higher than pressure of said polishing section.