Patent ID: 7472387

Claim:
A semiconductor manufacturing system for producing a substrate to be treated, said system comprising: a controller for controlling operation of the semiconductor manufacturing system by carrying out a control program that is stored in memory, said controller being configured to determine a time when a previous downloaded control program can be changed, temporarily store a new control program received through a communications circuit in a buffer, and store the new control program received through the communications circuit and stored in the buffer in memory so as to be executable by a processor in response to said controller determining the time when the previous control program can be changed or in response to an instruction, wherein said previous control program and said new control program are operable to carry out the following events: a standby event charging a substrate in a boat; a boat-up event loading the boat in a reactor by raising an elevator; a ramping-up event gradually raising a temperature; a process event forming a film on the substrate; a ramping-down event gradually decreasing the temperature; a boat-down event drawing the boat from the reactor by lowering the elevator; and a standby event discharging the substrate from the boat; wherein said controller is further configured to determine that the time at which the control program can be changed is not the process event forming a film on the substrate; and wherein said controller is further configured to hold prior data that was used to carry out the previous control program so that the prior data is used in carrying out the new control program.