PURPOSE: To make a wafer cooling speed uniform and to reduce an irregularity in a baking effect on each wafer by a method wherein a heating part to bake a resist applied to the wafer and a cooling part to cool the water forcibly are arranged in parallel on a wafer transfer route.

CONSTITUTION: Transfer arms 13, 13 are circulation-driven while they are raised, advanced, lowered and withdrawn as one cycle; a mounted water W is transferred in succession to the progressing side at prescribed intervals. A resist applied to the surface of the wafer W is heated by heating plates 15, is dried and is hardened, that is to say, is baked. The baked wafer W is transferred in succession to a cooling part 12 by using the transfer arms 13, 13; when even the transfer arms 13, 13 are lowered, the wafer is mounted on a cooling plate 18, is sucked and is fixed; the resist is cooled at a definite speed by a forcibly cooling action of the cooling plate 18 by using cooling water. Accordingly, a cooling speed at each wafer can be made uniform.