Patent ID: 8859046

Claim:
An exhaust control method for controlling a substrate processing apparatus including a plurality of processing chambers, said exhaust control method comprising: determining, by using a control unit controlling the plurality of processing chambers in communication with a plurality of pressure sensors, a plurality of discharge systems, a first switchover valve that switches between discharge through a main discharge system and discharge through an auxiliary discharge system, and a second switchover valve that switches between discharge through a scrubbing common discharge system and discharge through a non-scrubbing common discharge system, whether or not processing to be executed in one of the plurality of processing chambers is a predetermined type of processing based upon a pressure in said one of the processing chambers initially measured via one of the pressure sensors; opening, by using the control unit, the second switchover valve so as to release exhaust gas from a common discharge system connected to the plurality of discharge systems through the non-scrubbing common discharge system without scrubbing the exhaust gas upon determining that the processing to be executed in the processing chamber is a first processing that is executed in a pressure condition higher than a predetermined pressure and that is executed with at least one of a process gas or an inert gas containing no toxics being evacuated from at least one of the processing chambers; and closing, by using the control unit, the second switchover valve, so as to scrub exhaust gas from the common discharge system through the scrubbing common discharge system upon determining that the processing to be executed in the processing chamber is a second processing that is executed in a pressure condition lower than the predetermined pressure and that is executed with said process gas containing said toxics being evacuated from at least one of the processing chambers; executing exclusivity control, under which while the first processing is in progress in any of the processing chambers, the second processing is not executed in the other processing chambers, and while the second processing is in progress in any processing chamber, the first processing is not executed in the other processing chambers.