Patent ID: 7530749

Claim:
A coating and developing system comprising: a carrier station for loading a carrier containing a plurality of substrates from outside of the carrier station, and for unloading developed substrates that are contained in the carrier to the outside; a processing block including a coating unit and a development unit, the coating unit for coating a surface of a substrate with a resist fi 1 m, the developing unit for processing the coated substrate by an immersion exposure process that forms a liquid film on the surface of the resist film for immersion exposure; an interface block including a substrate transfer part, an inspection unit, a control unit, and a drying unit, the interface block disposed adjacent to the processing block and connected to an exposure system for performing an immersion exposure process to a substrate, wherein the substrate transfer part receives the coated substrate from the processing block, sends the coated substrate to the exposure system, receives the exposed substrate from the exposure system, and sends the exposed substrate to the processing block, the inspection unit includes a substrate support device for supporting the exposed substrate and a liquid detector for detecting at least a liquid used for forming the liquid film and adhering to the surface of the substrate supported by the substrate support device, the control unit determines whether or not the substrate needs to be processed by a drying process on the basis of a result of detection made by the liquid detector of the inspection unit, and the drying unit dries the substrate if the control unit decides that the substrate needs to be processed by a drying process.