Heat treatment apparatus and cleaning method of the same
OwnerYutaka Takahashi, Hitoshi Kato +4inventors
InventorsYutaka Takahashi, Hitoshi Kato, Hiroyuki Yamamoto, Katsutoshi Ishii, Kazuaki Nishimura, Phillip Spaull
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Abstract
An unnecessary film is removed by cleaning gas flowing in a treatment vessel 8 for depositing a film on an object W to be processed such as a semiconductor wafer. In this case, the cleaning gas is preheated and activated by the gas heating mechanism 52 and the cleaning gas flows in the treatment vessel 8 in this state. By doing this, an unnecessary film in the treatment vessel made of quartz is removed effectively without damaging the treatment vessel.
Claims17
A cleaning method of a heat treatment apparatus for feeding cleaning gas in a treatment vessel and removing an unnecessary film in said treatment vessel, comprising the steps of:
- preheating said cleaning gas outside said treatment vessel and
- feeding said preheated cleaning gas into said treatment vessel and heating and keeping said treatment vessel internally at a predetermined temperature.
A cleaning method of a heat treatment apparatus for feeding cleaning gas in a treatment vessel containing an object to be processed and removing a pollutant on said object to be processed in said treatment vessel, comprising the steps of:
- preheating said cleaning gas up to an activation capability temperature of said cleaning gas outside said treatment vessel and
- feeding said preheated cleaning gas into said treatment vessel and heating and keeping said treatment vessel internally at a predetermined temperature.
A heat treatment apparatus comprising:
- a treatment vessel having a holding tool for an object to be processed,
- a treatment vessel heater arranged outside said treatment vessel for heating said treatment vessel,
- cleaning gas feed means for feeding cleaning gas into said treatment vessel, and
- a cleaning gas heater connected to said cleaning gas feed means for preheating said cleaning gas outside said treatment vessel,
- wherein said cleaning gas heater and said treatment vessel heater are controlled by control means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.