Described herein is a technique capable of detecting a substrate state without contacting the substrate. According to one aspect of the technique, there is provided (a) loading a substrate retainer, where a plurality of substrates is placed, into a reaction tube; (b) processing the plurality of the substrates by supplying a gas into the reaction tube; (c) unloading the substrate retainer out of the reaction tube after the plurality of the substrates is processed; and (d) detecting the plurality of the substrates placed on the substrate retainer after the substrate retainer is rotated by a first angle with respect to a transferable position, wherein the plurality of the substrates is transferable to/from the substrate retainer in the transferable position.

A mask arrangement for masking a substrate in a processing chamber is provided. The mask arrangement includes a mask frame having one or more frame elements and is configured to support a mask device, wherein the mask device is connectable to the mask frame; and at least one actuator connectable to at least one frame element of the one or more frame elements, wherein the at least one actuator is configured to apply a force to the at least one frame element.

A thin film processing device includes a showerhead for performing thin film processing for a substrate on a susceptor that moves along a transport track, and one or more transporters for supporting the susceptor. The transporters can transport the susceptor along the transport track while floating with respect to the track and not contacting the track, and can also control the height of the susceptor so as to adjust the distance from the substrate to the showerhead; and a transporter control system for controlling the transporters.

A process chamber guide, designed for linearly guiding a substrate carrier that can be displaced in the process chamber guide in a direction of guidance such that by displacement of the substrate carrier in a process position, an at least regional demarcation of a process chamber guide can be formed by the process chamber guide and substrate carrier. The invention is characterized in that the process chamber guide has a roller bearing for the substrate support and at least one sealing surface, which extends parallel to the direction of guidance and is designed and arranged in such a way that, whenever the substrate carrier arranged in the process chamber guide is in a process position, the sealing surface is spaced apart less than 1 mm from the substrate carrier. The invention further relates to a process chamber and to a method for guiding a substrate carrier in a processing position.

A plasma boat for receiving wafers with partial damping of the plasma deposition comprises a number of boat plates spaced apart in parallel, which are provided with wafer holders for receiving upright wafers, in order to securely hold the wafers during transport and during the depositing process in a coating chamber, and wherein the boat plates are mechanically connected to one another by electrically insulating spacers. This provides a plasma boat, with regulated plasma deposition, which ensures a deposition on wafers that is uniform over the surface area thereof and has a constant layer thickness. This is achieved by a damping element (12) being respectively arranged between the wafer holders (16) located parallel to one another, between adjacent boat plates (15), and electrically insulated with respect to the latter on spacer elements (2).

Provided is a batch-type substrate processing apparatus which supplies, into a processing space, a process gas decomposed in a separate space. The substrate processing apparatus includes: a tube; a substrate support part; a gas supply pipe; an exhaust part; and a plasma reaction part, wherein the plasma part may include a plurality of power supply electrode parts and a ground electrode part.

There is provided a plasma generating device that includes a first electrode connected to a high-frequency power supply, and a second electrode to be grounded, a buffer structure configured to form a buffer chamber that accommodates the first and second electrodes wherein the first electrode and the second electrode are alternately arranged such that a number of electrodes of the first electrode and the second electrode are in an odd number of three or more in total, and wherein the second electrode is used in common for two of the first electrode being respectively adjacent to the second electrode used in common, and wherein a gas supply port that supplies gas into a process chamber is installed on a wall surface of the buffer structure.

The present description concerns a support (54) for semiconductor substrates (26) comprising an assembly of trays (58A, 58B, 58C, 58D) having the semiconductor substrates resting thereon. Each tray is made of an electrically-conductive material and has at least one substantially vertical surface having locations arranged in at least two horizontally-oriented rows and two vertically-oriented columns. Each location receives a semiconductor substrate oriented with an inclination relative to a vertical direction varying from 1° to 10°. Each tray comprises, at each location, a recess or a cavity covered with the substrate (56). The trays of each pair of trays facing each other are separated by electrically-insulating spacers (60).

A fabricating apparatus (2) of an sic epitaxial wafer disclosed herein includes: a growth furnace (100A); a gas mixing preliminary chamber (107) disposed outside the growth furnace and configured to mix carrier gas and/or material gas and to regulate a pressure thereof; a wafer boat (210) configured so that a plurality of SiC wafer pairs (200WP), in which two substrates each having an SiC single crystal in contact with each other in a back-to-back manner, are disposed at equal intervals with a gap therebetween; and a heating unit (101) configured to heat the wafer boat disposed in the growth furnace to an epitaxial growth temperature. The carrier gas and/or the material gas are introduced into the growth furnace after preliminarily being mixed and pressure-regulated in the gas mixing preliminary chamber (107) to grow an SiC layer on a surface of each of the plurality of SiC wafer pairs.

There is provided a plasma generating device that includes a first electrode connected to a high-frequency power supply, and a second electrode to be grounded, wherein the first electrode and the second electrode are alternately arranged such that a number of electrodes of the first electrode and the second electrode are in an odd number of three or more in total, and wherein the second electrode is used in common for two of the first electrode being respectively adjacent to the second electrode used in common.