Patent 7591922 was granted and assigned to Dainippon Screen Mfg Co on September, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A substrate processing apparatus for supplying a treatment liquid onto the surface of a substrate to treat the same. This apparatus is provided with: a spin chuck for holding and rotating a substrate; a nozzle for supplying a treatment liquid to the substrate held by the spin chuck; a circulating passage arranged such that the treatment liquid supplied to the substrate from the nozzle and used for substrate treatment is circulated to the nozzle and reutilized for substrate treatment; a metal contamination amount measuring device for measuring the metal contamination amount in the treatment liquid passing through the circulating passage; and a judgment processing unit for judging whether or not the value measured by the metal contamination amount measuring device has exceeded a predetermined set value.