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AssigneeKokusai Electric Corporation
InventorsEisuke Nishitani, Katsuhisa Kasanami, Naoko Matsuyama, Shinya Sasaki
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Uniformity of temperature is established within a wafer, and a higher throughput is achieved while the wafer heating time is dramatically reduced by combining lamp heating with hot-wall heating. Lamps 10 are provided outside the furnace body 3 of a hot-wall CVD apparatus. The hot-wall reactor furnace body 3 is preheated to a prescribed temperature. Wafers W are loaded into the furnace body 3, and these wafers W are rapidly heated mediately thereafter to the desired temperature by light emitted by the lamps 10. The lamps 10 are switched off following heating, and the wafer temperature is allowed to reach a uniform state as a result of heat diffusion in the wafers in the hot-wall reactor furnace body 3. It is also possible to adopt an arrangement in which preheating commensurate with the cooling occurring during the transport period is performed before the wafers W are loaded into the furnace body 3. the wafers W are then loaded into the reactor furnace body 3. and the water temperature is allowed to achieve a uniform state.
A hot-wall heat treatment method, comprising keeping the temperature inside a reactor furnace body at a prescribed level with the aid of resistance heaters prior to substrate loading into the reactor furnace body, said heat treatment method further comprising a step in which the substrates are preheated in such a way that the substrate temperature prior to substrate loading into the reactor furnace body is higher than the prescribed temperature inside said reactor furnace body.
A hot-wall heat treatment apparatus for keeping the temperature inside a reactor furnace body at a prescribed level with the aid of resistance heaters prior to substrate loading into the reactor furnace body, said heat treatment apparatus comprising:
A hot-wall heat treatment apparatus for keeping the temperature inside a reactor furnace body at a prescribed level with the aid of resistance heaters prior to substrate loading into the reactor furnace body, said heat treatment apparatus comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.