Applied Materials, Inc.

Sony Corporation

Sony Electronics Inc

Alfred Abraham Goldspiel

Manoocher Birang

Stephen J Blumenkranz

Sasson Roger Somekh

Shamouil Shamouilian

John F Cameron

Sen-Hou Ko

John H Prince

Chandra V Deshpandey

David L Rossmere

James C Nystrom

Robert Samuel Glenn, Jr

Ron Northrup

Semyon Shertinsky

Richard V Rafloski

A conditioner apparatus uses one or more linear conditioners. The linear conditioners extend from the edge of the polishing pad almost to the center of the pad. The conditioner apparatus may use two conditioner rods located on either side of a radial segment. The rods gimbal so that if one rod rises, the other rod is forced downwardly. In addition, the rods can pivot independently about a lateral axis, but they cannot pivot around the vertical axis. The linear conditioners may be actuated by a piezoelectric member or swept by an arm toward and away from the center of the polishing pad.

Linear conditioner apparatus for a chemical mechanical polishing system

An electrostatic chuck (20) for holding a substrate (45) is described. One version of the chuck (20) suitable for mounting on a base (25), comprises (i) an electrostatic member (33) having an electrode (50) therein, and (ii) an electrical lead (60) extending through the base (25) to electrically engage the electrode (50) of the electrostatic member (33). When the chuck (20) is used to hold a substrate (45) in a process chamber (80) containing erosive process gas, the substrate (45) covers and substantially protects the electrical lead (60) from erosion by the erosive process gas. In a preferred version of the chuck (20), an electrical connector (55) forming an integral extension of the electrode (50), electrically connects the electrode (50) to a voltage supply terminal (70) used to operate the chuck (20). The electrical connector (55) comprises (i) an electrical lead (60) that extends through the base (25), and (ii) an electrical contact (65) on the electrical lead (60), the contact sized sufficiently large to directly contact and electrically engage the voltage supply terminal (70). The electrode (50) of the chuck (20) can comprise first and second electrodes (130), (135) electrically isolated from one another by an electrical isolation void (52), the electrodes sized and configured so that the electrical isolation void (52) can serve as a cooling groove (105) for holding coolant for cooling the substrate (45) held on the chuck (20). Preferably, the two electrode chuck (20) is used in conjunction with a switching system capable of operating the chuck (20) in either a monopolar mode or in a bipolar mode. Erosion resistance of the chuck (20) is further enhanced by a masking gas assembly (115) which directs a masking gas at an exposed portion of the insulator (35), to protect the exposed portion of the insulator (35) from the erosive gas contained in the process chamber (80).

Electrostatic chuck with improved erosion resistance

A dual bus, multi-function disk chassis is provided for use as an enclosure for hard disk drives that store audio or video. The chassis allows configuration of the disk drives for either one of two independent buses contained within the chassis without the need to re-cable any of the bus connections. These two buses are an audio bus for transmitting audio material and a video bus for transmitting video material. The chassis also contains multiple sets of edge connector pairs. Each of the edge connector pairs consists of a first edge connector for connection to the video bus and a second edge connector for connection to the audio bus. This arrangement allows the disk drives to be configured for audio or video storage depending on the orientation of the drive at insertion.

Multifunction disk chassis having audio/video buses for exclusively

Growing community of inventors

Watsonville, CA, United States of America

Alfred Abraham Goldspiel