Substrate Processing Apparatus

Abstract

A single-wafer substrate processing apparatus includes a substrate transfer chamber including a substrate transfer robot, a process chamber, connected to the substrate transfer chamber, for processing a substrate, and a plurality of port sets including (i) a load port, connected to the substrate transfer chamber for receiving an unprocessed substrate to be supplied to the substrate transfer robot, and (ii) an unload port connected to the substrate transfer chamber, as a member different from the load port, for receiving a processed substrate to be retrieved by the substrate transfer robot. Each of the plurality of port sets, the load port and the unload port are arranged adjacent to each other. The plurality of port sets is arranged apart from one another and around the substrate transfer chamber, and the load port and the unload port are adapted to be capable of vacuum exhaust and vacuum break independently of each other. A controller selects a port set to transfer a substrate using the substrate transfer robot, from among the plurality of port sets, and the unprocessed substrate is transferred one-by-one to the load port. When the unprocessed substrate is transferred to the load port, the inside of the load port is vacuum-exhausted, and when the processed substrate is transferred to the unload port, the inside of the unload port is vacuum-broken.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.