System for processing and conveying substrate

Abstract

A substrate processing system basically comprises a coater-developer apparatus, an exposure processing apparatus and a conveyance controlling apparatus. The coater-developer apparatus comprises a coater unit including a coater for applying photo-resist on the substrate, and a developer unit for developing the substrate. The exposure processing apparatus includes an exposing means, and an inspection means for inspecting the photo-resist pattern on the substrate. The conveyance controlling apparatus conveys or feeds the substrate through the coater unit, exposure processing apparatus and developer unit in order. The conveyance controlling apparatus includes means forming a first conveying path for conveying a wafer from a loader cassette to the exposure processing apparatus through the coater unit, means forming a second conveying path for conveying the wafer from the exposure processing apparatus to an unloader cassette through the developer unit, and auxiliary conveying means forming a third conveying path for directly conveying the wafer on the first conveying path to the exposure processing apparatus without through the coater unit or directly conveying the wafer on the second conveying path to the exposure processing apparatus without through the developer unit. The wafer is returned from the second conveying path to an inspection device in the exposure processing apparatus by means of the auxiliary conveying means, and a forming state of a resist pattern formed on the wafer is checked by the inspection device. Further, there is provided a main controller for determining an optimum forming condition for the resist pattern on the basis of the checked forming state and for properly controlling a processing condition of either coater-developer or exposing means to process the wafer in accordance with the determined optimum condition.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.