| 摘要 |
PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent the temperature rise of a nitrogen gas circulating through a standby chamber. SOLUTION: A heat treatment apparatus has a treating chamber 23 for treating a wafer 1, a boat 21 for holding the wafer 1 and carrying it into the treating chamber 23, a standby chamber 16 for so making the boat 21 to wait until carried into the treating chamber 23, a circulating path 31 for circulating a nitrogen gas 30 through the standby chamber 16, a feed pipe 43 for feeding the nitrogen gas 30 to the circulating path 31, and an exhausting pipe 44 for exhausting the nitrogen gas 30 from the circulating path 31. When the boat 21 is carried out from the treating chamber 23, a flow rate of the nitrogen gas 30 is so exhausted from the standby chamber 16 by the exhausting pipe 44 as to feed the nitrogen gas 30 by the flow rate to the standby chamber 16 with the feed pipe 43. Also, while the boat 21 is carried in the treating chamber 23, the nitrogen gas 30 is circulated through the standby chamber 16 via the circulating path 31. Thereby, since a fresh inert gas is brought into the flow-through in the standby chamber when carrying out the treated-off wafer having a high temperature to the standby chamber, the temperature rise of the nitrogen gas is prevented. COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO
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