The invention relates to an apparatus for mounting components on a substrate. The apparatus comprises a bond head with a component gripper, a first drive system for moving a carrier over relatively long distances, a second drive system which is attached to the carrier for moving the bond head back and forth between a nominal working position and a stand-by position, a drive attached to the bond head for rotating the component gripper or a rotary drive for rotating the substrate about an axis, at least one substrate camera attached to the carrier and at least one component camera. Either the second drive system is also designed to perform high-precision correction movements with the bond head, or a third drive system is provided to perform high-precision correction movements with the substrate. At least one reference mark is attached to the bond head or the component gripper.

A plasma processing apparatus includes a chamber having a gas inlet and a gas outlet; a plasma generator; and a controller configured to cause: (a) providing a substrate including a silicon-containing film and a mask formed on the film; (b) etching the silicon-containing film through the mask to the first depth, thereby forming a recess in the silicon-containing film; (c) forming a protection film at least on the mask and a side wall of the recess formed on the silicon-containing film after (a); and (d) etching the silicon containing film through the mask to a second depth, the second depth being greater than the first depth.

A system and method include dividing, by a processor of a manufacturing execution system (MES), a time axis associated with a time window into a plurality of time slots, assigning an integer value to an integer variable indexed by a slot identifier, a machine identifier, and a wafer lot identifier, specifying one or more constraints based on the integer variable, wherein the one or more constraints comprise a wafer quantity constraint and a Q-time constraint, executing an optimization solver under the one or more constraints to determine a time and a quantity of wafer lots to be provided to each machine associated with the time window, and issuing a request to a controller to cause provision of the quantity of wafer lots to each machine associated with each step in the time window.

A method of inspecting a semiconductor processing chamber includes providing a vision sensor into the semiconductor processing chamber, aligning the vision sensor on a target in the semiconductor processing chamber, obtaining an object image of the target using an image scanning module of the vision sensor, generating a three dimensional model of the target based on the object image, and obtaining a physical quantity of the target from the three dimensional model. The obtaining of the object image of the target includes projecting a pattern onto the target using an illuminator of the image scanning module, and scanning an image of the target in which the pattern is projected, using a camera of the image scanning module.

According to one aspect of the technique, there is provided a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, including checking a leak from a process furnace before a substrate is processed. The checking includes: (a) measuring, by a partial pressure sensor provided at an exhaust pipe, an oxygen partial pressure value of a residual oxygen after the process furnace is vacuum-exhausted; (b) comparing the oxygen partial pressure value measured by the partial pressure sensor with a threshold value; and (c) when the oxygen partial pressure value is higher than the threshold value in (b), performing at least one among: purging the process furnace and evacuating the process furnace.

A transport system includes a plurality of transport vehicles and a controller. The transport vehicle includes a travel unit and transfer unit. The controller performs a blocking control to prohibit transport vehicles other than the transport vehicle from entering a blocking zone corresponding to the area occupied by the transport vehicle when transferring an article in a plan view. To transfer an article from/to a placement table, the transport vehicle travels along the route to the placement table in a first direction. An area of the blocking zone when the transport vehicle accesses to the placement table in the first direction is equal to or less than an area of the blocking zone identified when the transport vehicle accesses to the placement table in the second direction different from the first direction.

A substrate processing apparatus includes a chamber, a plurality of devices, and a controller. The chamber is subjected to substrate processing. The plurality of devices execute operations related to substrate processing. The controller controls the operations of the plurality of devices. Further, the controller determines whether or not an error has occurred during performing the substrate processing in a chamber, and causes the plurality of devices to automatically execute a recovery operation corresponding to the content of the error that has occurred when the controller determines that the error has occurred and has suspended the substrate processing.

A buffer station for automatic material handling system can provide throughput improvement. Further, by storing to-be-accessed workpieces in the buffer stations of an equipment, the operation of the facility is not interrupted when the equipment is down. The buffer station can be incorporated in a stocker, such as bare wafer stocker.

A traveling vehicle controller includes a command assignment controller to detect a first-to-arrive traveling vehicle that is able to reach a destination point first among traveling vehicles, based on travel route candidates on which the traveling vehicles travel along a travel path from respective positions to reach the destination point, and assign the command to the first-to-arrive traveling vehicle. During detection of the first-to-arrive traveling vehicle, when a traveling vehicle traveling toward a branch point on the travel path is located within a range of a branch-switching impossible distance from the branch point and is scheduled to proceed toward a main way at the branch point, the command assignment controller performs pseudo-shift processing by which this traveling vehicle is determined to be located in a position downstream of the branch point and on a side of the main way.

A method of preparing a self-aligned via on a semiconductor workpiece includes using an integrated sequence of processing steps executed on a common manufacturing platform hosting a plurality of processing modules including one or more film-forming modules, one or more etching modules, and one or more transfer modules. The integrated sequence of processing steps include receiving the workpiece into the common manufacturing platform, the workpiece having a pattern of metal features in a dielectric layer wherein exposed surfaces of the metal features and exposed surfaces of the dielectric layer together define an upper planar surface; selectively etching the metal features to form a recess pattern by recessing the exposed surfaces of the metal features beneath the exposed surfaces of the dielectric layer using one of the one or more etching modules; and depositing an etch stop layer over the recess pattern using one of the one or more film-forming modules.