Patent ID: 8560108

Claim:
A substrate processing apparatus comprising: a plurality of module groups each including a plurality modules, at least one module group including a multi-module having a plurality of modules configured to perform the same process to substrates; a transfer unit configured to take out substrates from modules on an upstream side of the multi-module, to transfer the substrates to modules in the multi-module, and to take in the substrates to the respective modules in the multi-module in order; a storage part storing a transfer schedule including a transfer cycle by which the substrates are transferred by the transfer unit to the respective modules in the multi-module; and a control part that controls the transfer unit based on the transfer schedule in the storage part; wherein, when at least one of the modules constituting the multi-module is an unavailable module and at least one of the modules is an available module, the control part is configured to perform the following operations (2): (2) upon generation of the unavailable module, when the substrate to be loaded into the unavailable module has been made to standby in a module that is one module ahead of the unavailable module, and when the transfer cycle has been already started, the transfer unit is located on the upstream side of the unavailable module in the transfer cycle: (2-a) a destination of the substrate, which is to be loaded into the unavailable module and is now placed on a multi-module on the upstream side of the multi-module, is changed to a module in the multi-module, to which a substrate subsequent to the substrate is to be transferred; (2-b) when the module to which the substrate subsequent to the substrate is to be transferred is an unavailable module, another module to which a further subsequent substrate is to be transferred is searched so as to find an available module, and the available module is determined as the destination; and (2-c) when a precedent substrate is not yet ready to be unloaded from the destination module as determined above, the transfer operation of the transfer unit is made to standby on the upstream side of the module determined as the destination.