Cleaning apparatus and cleaning method
AssigneeTokyo Electron Limited
InventorsHiroshi Tanaka, Shinichiro Shimomura, Yuji Kamikawa
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Wafers (W) is immersed in a cleaning liquid (L) contained in a cleaning tank (20). The cleaning liquid (L) is supplied into the cleaning tank (20) so that the cleaning liquid (L) overflows the cleaning tank (20). The cleaning liquid (L) overflowed the cleaning tank (20) is filtered, circulated and returned into the cleaning tank (20). A motor-operated bellows pump (30) is connected by a suction pipe (51) to the cleaning tank (20). A particle counter (5) for counting particles contained in a sample of the cleaning liquid (L) sampled by the motor-operated bellows pump (30) is placed on the suction pipe (51) and connected to the suction side of the motor-operated bellows pump (30).
Claims21
A cleaning apparatus comprising:
- a cleaning tank for containing a cleaning liquid in which a workpiece is immersed for processing;
- a circulation line connected to the cleaning tank and provided with a filtering device;
- and
- a measuring line separate from the circulation line, provided with a fixed-quantity delivery means, a measuring means for measuring fine contaminative particles contained in the cleaning liquid, and a suction end connected to the cleaning tank.
A cleaning method for immersing a workpiece in a cleaning liquid contained in a cleaning tank and for circulating the cleaning liquid contained in the cleaning tank through a circulation line provided with a filtering device for filtering the cleaning liquid, said cleaning method comprising the steps of:
- sampling a fixed quantity of the cleaning liquid from the cleaning tank by a fixed-quantity delivery means;
- measuring by a measuring means fine contaminative particles contained in the cleaning liquid sampled by the fixed-quantity delivery means;
- and
- providing from a control means a detection signal representing a contaminative particle number of the cleaning liquid on the basis of measured data provided by the measuring means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.