Coating method and coating apparatus

A coating method which uses a coating apparatus comprising a coating section having a stage module, a first temperature regulating module which adjusts a temperature of a substrate to a set temperature, a first coating module which applies a first coating liquid to the temperature-regulated substrate, a first heating module which heats the substrate applied with the first coating liquid, a second temperature regulating module which cools down the substrate to adjusts a temperature thereof to the set temperature, a second coating module which applies a second coating liquid to the temperature-regulated substrate, and a second heating module which heats the substrate applied with the second coating liquid, arranged in order from an upstream end of transfer along a transfer path of the substrate;

• and a substrate transfer mechanism which has an upper arm and a lower arm, provided one on the other and advanceable and retreatable independently of each other, and operates to transfer the substrate downstream from an upstream side along the transfer path of the substrate, the coating method comprising:
• receiving a substrate on the stage module with one of the upper arm and the lower arm;
• receiving a substrate placed on a next module with the other one of the upper arm and the lower arm;
• further transferring the substrate on the one of the arms to said next module;
• and
• alternately operating the upper arm and the lower arm in this manner to transfer substrates from an upstream module to a downstream module one by one,
• wherein a first dummy stage is placed between the first coating module and the first heating module so as to make that arm which performs transfer from the first temperature regulating module to the first coating module differ from that arm which receives a substrate from the first heating module,
• a second dummy stage is placed between the second coating module and the second heating module so as to make that arm which performs transfer from the second temperature regulating module to the second coating module differ from that arm which receives a substrate from the second heating module, and
• numbers are sequentially assigned to downstream modules with the stage module at the upstream end taken as a first module, that substrate which is located on the first stage module is received with the upper arm when the first temperature regulating module and the second temperature regulating module are even-numbered modules, and the substrate located on the first stage module is received with the lower arm when the first temperature regulating module and the second temperature regulating module are odd-numbered modules, so that substrate transfer from the temperature regulating module to the coating module is always carried out with the lower arm.