Patents by Inventor Norihisa Koga

Norihisa Koga has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20240022693
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a substrate imaging apparatus includes: a rotary holding unit that holds and rotates a substrate; a mirror member having a reflecting surface that opposes an end face of the substrate and a peripheral portion of a back surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, the reflecting surface being inclined with respect to a rotation axis of the rotary holding unit; and a camera having an imaging device that receives both first light and second light through a lens, the first light coming from a peripheral portion of a front surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, and the second light being a reflected light of second light which comes from the end face of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit and is reflected by the reflecting surface.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 27, 2023
    Publication date: January 18, 2024
    Applicant: TOKYO ELECTRON LIMITED
    Inventors: Norihisa KOGA, Tadashi NISHIYAMA, Yasuaki NODA
  • Patent number: 11832026
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a substrate imaging apparatus includes: a rotary holding unit that holds and rotates a substrate; a mirror member having a reflecting surface that opposes an end face of the substrate and a peripheral portion of a back surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, the reflecting surface being inclined with respect to a rotation axis of the rotary holding unit; and a camera having an imaging device that receives both first light and second light through a lens, the first light coming from a peripheral portion of a front surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, and the second light being a reflected light of second light which comes from the end face of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit and is reflected by the reflecting surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2023
    Assignee: Tokyo Electron Limited
    Inventors: Norihisa Koga, Tadashi Nishiyama, Yasuaki Noda
  • Patent number: 11733612
    Abstract: A substrate processing apparatus includes light source configured to irradiate a substrate having thereon a resist film made of a resist material for EUV lithography with light including vacuum ultraviolet light before an exposure process, and a light amount suppressing member provided in an optical path of the light from the light source and configured to suppress an amount of the light reaching a surface of the substrate such that the light becomes weak light as a whole in an irradiation region, wherein the light including the vacuum ultraviolet light contains a continuous spectral component of at least a portion of a band contained in a wavelength of 10 nm to 200 nm.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2022
    Date of Patent: August 22, 2023
    Assignee: TOKYO ELECTRON LIMITED
    Inventors: Kazuya Iwata, Norihisa Koga
  • Publication number: 20220317575
    Abstract: A substrate processing apparatus includes light source configured to irradiate a substrate having thereon a resist film made of a resist material for EUV lithography with light including vacuum ultraviolet light before an exposure process, and a light amount suppressing member provided in an optical path of the light from the light source and configured to suppress an amount of the light reaching a surface of the substrate such that the light becomes weak light as a whole in an irradiation region, wherein the light including the vacuum ultraviolet light contains a continuous spectral component of at least a portion of a band contained in a wavelength of 10 nm to 200 nm.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 24, 2022
    Publication date: October 6, 2022
    Inventors: Kazuya IWATA, Norihisa KOGA
  • Patent number: 11353792
    Abstract: A substrate processing apparatus includes: a processing chamber configured to process a substrate; a light source chamber including a light source configured to irradiate vacuum ultraviolet light onto a surface of the substrate; a gas supply configured to supply an inert gas into the light source chamber; and a controller that controls the gas supply to maintain the light source chamber in an inert gas atmosphere.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 20, 2019
    Date of Patent: June 7, 2022
    Assignee: TOKYO ELECTRON LIMITED
    Inventor: Norihisa Koga
  • Patent number: 11256172
    Abstract: A light irradiating device includes a processing chamber in which a substrate is accommodated; a beam source chamber in which a beam source of an energy beam is accommodated; a partition wall configured to partition the processing chamber and the beam source chamber; multiple window members provided at the partition wall to transmit the energy beam outputted from the beam source toward the substrate within the processing chamber; and multiple gas discharge units respectively disposed around the multiple window members within the processing chamber, and configured to discharge an inert gas along surfaces of the multiple window members.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 24, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 22, 2022
    Assignee: TOKYO ELECTRON LIMITED
    Inventors: Takaya Kikai, Norihisa Koga, Masaru Tomono
  • Publication number: 20210185282
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a substrate imaging apparatus includes: a rotary holding unit that holds and rotates a substrate; a mirror member having a reflecting surface that opposes an end face of the substrate and a peripheral portion of a back surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, the reflecting surface being inclined with respect to a rotation axis of the rotary holding unit; and a camera having an imaging device that receives both first light and second light through a lens, the first light coming from a peripheral portion of a front surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, and the second light being a reflected light of second light which comes from the end face of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit and is reflected by the reflecting surface.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 2, 2021
    Publication date: June 17, 2021
    Applicant: Tokyo Electron Limited
    Inventors: Norihisa KOGA, Tadashi NISHIYAMA, Yasuaki NODA
  • Patent number: 10958879
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a substrate imaging apparatus includes: a rotary holding unit that holds and rotates a substrate; a mirror member having a reflecting surface that opposes an end face of the substrate and a peripheral portion of a back surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, the reflecting surface being inclined with respect to a rotation axis of the rotary holding unit; and a camera having an imaging device that receives both first light and second light through a lens, the first light coming from a peripheral portion of a front surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, and the second light being a reflected light of second light which comes from the end face of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit and is reflected by the reflecting surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 12, 2019
    Date of Patent: March 23, 2021
    Assignee: Tokyo Electron Limited
    Inventors: Norihisa Koga, Tadashi Nishiyama, Yasuaki Noda
  • Publication number: 20200409269
    Abstract: A light irradiating device includes a processing chamber in which a substrate is accommodated; a beam source chamber in which a beam source of an energy beam is accommodated; a partition wall configured to partition the processing chamber and the beam source chamber; multiple window members provided at the partition wall to transmit the energy beam outputted from the beam source toward the substrate within the processing chamber; and multiple gas discharge units respectively disposed around the multiple window members within the processing chamber, and configured to discharge an inert gas along surfaces of the multiple window members.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 24, 2020
    Publication date: December 31, 2020
    Inventors: Takaya Kikai, Norihisa Koga, Masaru Tomono
  • Patent number: 10795265
    Abstract: There is provided a substrate processing apparatus including: a light radiator configured to radiate a light for processing into an irradiation area which is smaller than a processing target area of a surface of a substrate; a driver configured to move the irradiation area in two directions that cross each other in a plane along the surface of the substrate; and a controller configured to control the driver to move an irradiation position in two directions according to a movement pattern which has been set to radiate the light to an entire area of the processing target area.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 24, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 6, 2020
    Assignee: TOKYO ELECTRON LIMITED
    Inventors: Norihisa Koga, Yoshitaka Konishi, Naruaki Iida, Yuzo Ohishi, Kazuhiro Takeshita
  • Patent number: 10707109
    Abstract: A substrate processing apparatus includes carry in/out station, transfer station, processing station, and image capturing unit. The carry in/out station includes first conveyance device that takes out and conveys substrate from cassette. The transfer station is disposed adjacent to the carry in/out station, and includes substrate placement unit on which the substrate conveyed by the first conveyance device is placed. The processing station is disposed adjacent to the transfer station, and includes second conveyance device that takes out and conveys the substrate from the substrate placement unit, and a plurality of processing units that processes the substrate conveyed by the second conveyance device. The image capturing unit is disposed in the transfer station, and captures an image of the peripheral edge portion of one of the upper and lower surfaces of the substrate and the end surface of the substrate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 7, 2020
    Assignee: TOKYO ELECTRON LIMITED
    Inventors: Satoshi Morita, Ryoji Ikebe, Yasuaki Noda, Norihisa Koga, Keisuke Hamamoto, Masato Hosaka
  • Patent number: 10642168
    Abstract: An auxiliary exposure apparatus is for performing auxiliary exposure of applying light of a predetermined wavelength from a laser light source to a resist film on a wafer, separately from exposure processing of transferring a pattern of a mask to the resist film applied on the wafer. The auxiliary exposure apparatus includes a first total reflection mirror that reflects the light from the laser light source toward the wafer; and an imaging device including a light receiving part that receives light after reflected by the wafer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2020
    Assignee: Tokyo Electron Limited
    Inventors: Hideaki Kashiwagi, Takafumi Niwa, Norihisa Koga
  • Publication number: 20200084422
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a substrate imaging apparatus includes: a rotary holding unit that holds and rotates a substrate; a mirror member having a reflecting surface that opposes an end face of the substrate and a peripheral portion of a back surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, the reflecting surface being inclined with respect to a rotation axis of the rotary holding unit; and a camera having an imaging device that receives both first light and second light through a lens, the first light coming from a peripheral portion of a front surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, and the second light being a reflected light of second light which comes from the end face of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit and is reflected by the reflecting surface.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 12, 2019
    Publication date: March 12, 2020
    Applicant: Tokyo Electron Limited
    Inventors: Norihisa KOGA, Tadashi Nishiyama, Yasuaki Noda
  • Publication number: 20200041913
    Abstract: There is provided a substrate processing apparatus including: a light radiator configured to radiate a light for processing into an irradiation area which is smaller than a processing target area of a surface of a substrate; a driver configured to move the irradiation area in two directions that cross each other in a plane along the surface of the substrate; and a controller configured to control the driver to move an irradiation position in two directions according to a movement pattern which has been set to radiate the light to an entire area of the processing target area.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 24, 2019
    Publication date: February 6, 2020
    Inventors: Norihisa KOGA, Yoshitaka KONISHI, Naruaki IIDA, Yuzo OHISHI, Kazuhiro TAKESHITA
  • Patent number: 10523905
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a substrate imaging apparatus includes: a rotary holding unit that holds and rotates a substrate; a mirror member having a reflecting surface that opposes an end face of the substrate and a peripheral portion of a back surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, the reflecting surface being inclined with respect to a rotation axis of the rotary holding unit; and a camera having an imaging device that receives both first light and second light through a lens, the first light coming from a peripheral portion of a front surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, and the second light being a reflected light of second light which comes from the end face of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit and is reflected by the reflecting surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 21, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2019
    Assignee: Tokyo Electron Limited
    Inventors: Norihisa Koga, Tadashi Nishiyama, Yasuaki Noda
  • Publication number: 20190361351
    Abstract: A substrate processing apparatus includes: a processing chamber configured to process a substrate; a light source chamber including a light source configured to irradiate vacuum ultraviolet light onto a surface of the substrate; a gas supply configured to supply an inert gas into the light source chamber; and a controller that controls the gas supply to maintain the light source chamber in an inert gas atmosphere.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 20, 2019
    Publication date: November 28, 2019
    Inventor: Norihisa Koga
  • Publication number: 20190096730
    Abstract: A substrate processing apparatus includes carry in/out station, transfer station, processing station, and image capturing unit. The carry in/out station includes first conveyance device that takes out and conveys substrate from cassette. The transfer station is disposed adjacent to the carry in/out station, and includes substrate placement unit on which the substrate conveyed by the first conveyance device is placed. The processing station is disposed adjacent to the transfer station, and includes second conveyance device that takes out and conveys the substrate from the substrate placement unit, and a plurality of processing units that processes the substrate conveyed by the second conveyance device. The image capturing unit is disposed in the transfer station, and captures an image of the peripheral edge portion of one of the upper and lower surfaces of the substrate and the end surface of the substrate.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 21, 2018
    Publication date: March 28, 2019
    Inventors: Satoshi Morita, Ryoji Ikebe, Yasuaki Noda, Norihisa Koga, Keisuke Hamamoto, Masato Hosaka
  • Publication number: 20180095370
    Abstract: An auxiliary exposure apparatus is for performing auxiliary exposure of applying light of a predetermined wavelength from a laser light source to a resist film on a wafer, separately from exposure processing of transferring a pattern of a mask to the resist film applied on the wafer, and includes: a first total reflection mirror configured to reflect the light from the laser light source toward the wafer; and an imaging device including a light receiving part configured to receive light after reflected by the wafer.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 29, 2017
    Publication date: April 5, 2018
    Inventors: Hideaki KASHIWAGI, Takafumi NIWA, Norihisa KOGA
  • Publication number: 20170244936
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a substrate imaging apparatus includes: a rotary holding unit that holds and rotates a substrate; a mirror member having a reflecting surface that opposes an end face of the substrate and a peripheral portion of a back surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, the reflecting surface being inclined with respect to a rotation axis of the rotary holding unit; and a camera having an imaging device that receives both first light and second light through a lens, the first light coming from a peripheral portion of a front surface of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit, and the second light being a reflected light of second light which comes from the end face of the substrate held by the rotary holding unit and is reflected by the reflecting surface.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 21, 2017
    Publication date: August 24, 2017
    Applicant: Tokyo Electron Limited
    Inventors: Norihisa KOGA, Tadashi NISHIYAMA, Yasuaki NODA
  • Patent number: 9025852
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a substrate inspection apparatus performs, in its maintenance mode, operations including: guiding a light emitted from an illuminating unit to an imaging device via a light-guiding member disposed in a casing; judging whether or not a level of a brightness signal obtained by the imaging device falls within a predetermined allowable range when a light emitted from the illuminating unit falls on the imaging device via the light-guiding member; and alarming, if it is judged that the value of the brightness signal is out of the predetermined allowable range, that replacement of the illuminating unit is required.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2015
    Assignee: Tokyo Electron Limited
    Inventors: Kazuya Hisano, Hiroshi Tomita, Norihisa Koga, Tadashi Nishiyama, Makoto Hayakawa