Patent ID: 7972961

Claim:
A method of processing semiconductor substrates in an apparatus comprising a reaction chamber and a transfer chamber connected to and communicated with the reaction chamber via a gate valve, said reaction chamber and said transfer chamber being evacuatable, said method comprising: (i) depositing a film on a substrate in the reaction chamber; (ii) evacuating the reaction chamber without purging the reaction chamber between steps (i) and (iii); (iii) opening the gate valve and replacing the substrate with a next substrate via the transfer chamber, wherein the pressure of the transfer chamber is controlled to be higher than that of the reaction chamber before and while the gate valve is opened by introducing an inert gas into the transfer chamber while evacuating the transfer chamber and the reaction chamber independently, wherein while the gate valve is open, the inert gas flows from the transfer chamber into the reaction chamber and a flow rate of the inert gas into the transfer chamber is increased, relative to that before the gate valve is opened for replacing the substrate with the next substrate, to 5,000 to 10,000 sccm; (iv) repeating steps (i) and (ii) for the next substrate and removing the next substrate from the reaction chamber; and (v) after removing the last substrate from the reaction chamber, purging and evacuating the reaction chamber, and cleaning the reaction chamber with a cleaning gas, wherein the purging is conducted by introducing an inert gas into the reaction chamber at a greater flow rate than that used when the last substrate is present in the reaction chamber.