A semiconductor manufacturing apparatus includes a recording unit that records content spoken by a first worker, a speech-to-text conversion unit that converts the content recorded by the recording unit, into text, and a display control unit that causes the text to be displayed on a display device viewable by a second worker.

An apparatus for treating a substrate includes a process chamber having a process space, a support unit that supports the substrate in the process space, a lift pin module having a lift pin that moves a consumable component on the support unit in an up/down direction, and a measurement unit that measures a degree of wear of the consumable component and has a light receiving member that receives light emitted in a horizontal direction.

There is provided a technique that includes: a substrate processor processing a substrate; a gas supplier supplying, to the substrate processor, a gas that processes the substrate; an acquirer configured to perform the act of processing the substrate a predetermined number of times and acquire measurement values in a predetermined section during each act of processing the substrate; a determination condition setter configured to set a threshold for each of a plurality of predetermined determination items based on the measurement values acquired by the acquirer; and a determiner configured to, in the act of processing the substrate after the threshold is set, determine whether or not the acquired measurement values are within a range of the threshold for each of the plurality of predetermined determination items, and determine whether or not the act of processing the substrate is reproducible.

Methods and systems for input/output (IO) handling during an update process for a manufacturing system controller are provided. A detection is made that process control instructions corresponding to a process recipe are to be updated. A set of notifications is transmitted between component(s) of the manufacturing system and a system update IO handler of the system controller. The notifications include commands which, upon execution, cause the manufacturing system component(s) to maintain an environment of the manufacturing system at a target condition while the process control instructions are updated. Following a completion of the update and upon determining that the condition of the environment satisfies one or more criteria associated with the target condition, additional notifications are transmitted between the component(s) and a system process IO handler to initiate performance of a process at the manufacturing system.

One object of the present disclosure is to flexibly and promptly save a processing solution in an apparatus for processing a substrate. An apparatus for processing a substrate is configured to change over a transfer time table between an ordinary mode that has a maximum throughput of the apparatus for processing the substrate and a processing solution saving mode that saves a processing solution in at least one of processing tanks. The apparatus for processing the substrate determines whether or not the apparatus for processing the substrate is in a slack period that has a small demand output by the apparatus for processing the substrate, based on a rate-controlling point that limits a processing speed of the entire apparatus for processing the substrate, and sets the transfer time table to the processing solution saving mode when it is determined that the apparatus for processing the substrate is in the slack period, while setting the transfer time table to the ordinary mode when it is determined that the apparatus for processing the substrate is not in the slack period.

A substrate processing congestion management apparatus includes at least one processor configured to divide a process sequence of a substrate processing apparatus into specific sections and determine whether congestion occurs in the specific sections, to set an initial suspected region corresponding to a section in which the congestion occurs, analyze outliers in events occurring in the initial suspected region, deduce a final suspected region while updating the initial suspected region based on an event in which an outlier is identified, and determine, among the events, an event with a greatest contribution to the final suspected region as a congestion cause, and to notify the congestion cause and automatically control the substrate processing apparatus to reduce process congestion and improve substrate processing throughput, based on the determined congestion cause.

A method for calibrating a tray shield used for holding a wafer for processing is provided. The tray shield is in a ring shape. The method includes determining whether a first calibration ring is placeable into an inner chamber of the tray shield. When the first calibration ring is placeable into the inner chamber, the tray shield is determined to be usable for wafer processing. The first calibration ring is moved around inside the inner chamber to remove metal particles or burrs on the inner chamber, and thereafter, a wafer is loaded in the inner chamber. When the first calibration ring is not placeable into the inner chamber, the tray shield may be discarded. The method may also include assembling the tray shield utilizing a second calibration ring having an outer diameter equal to an inner diameter of the ring shape.