Applied Materials, Inc.

Bryan Liao

Kartik Ramaswamy

Sergio Fukuda Shoji

Duy D Nguyen

Shahid Rauf

Hamid Noorbakhsh

Ankur Agarwal

David Palagashvili

Katsumasa Kawasaki

Chetan Mahadeswaraswamy

Phillip Stout

Yashaswini Pattar

Shawming Ma

James P Cruse

Chunlei Zhang

Jie Zhou

Chang-Lin Hsieh

Hun Sang Kim

Judy Wang

Andrey Semenin

Methods and systems for controlling temperatures in plasma processing chamber for a wide range of setpoint temperatures and reduced energy consumption. Temperature control is coordinated between a coolant liquid loop and a heat source by a control algorithm implemented by the plasma processing module controller. The control algorithm may completely stop the flow of coolant liquid to a temperature-controlled component in response to a feedback signal indicating an actual temperature is below the setpoint temperature. The control algorithm may further be based at least in part on a feedforward control signal derived from a plasma power or change in plasma power input into the processing chamber during process recipe execution.

Component temperature control by coolant flow control and heater duty cycle control

Methods for processing a substrate are provided herein. In some embodiments, a method of etching a dielectric layer includes generating a plasma by pulsing a first RF source signal having a first duty cycle; applying a second RF bias signal having a second duty cycle to the plasma; applying a third RF bias signal having a third duty cycle to the plasma, wherein the first, second, and third signals are synchronized; adjusting a phase variance between the first RF source signal and at least one of the second or third RF bias signals to control at least one of plasma ion density non-uniformity in the plasma or charge build-up on the dielectric layer; and etching the dielectric layer with the plasma.

Synchronized radio frequency pulsing for plasma etching

Methods and apparatus for tuning matching networks are provided herein. A method of tuning a matching network includes providing a matching network coupling an RF source to a load, the matching network having a tunable element disposed at a first set point; increasing a value of the tunable element by a first step above the first set point; sensing a first adjusted value of a reflected RF power; decreasing the value of the tunable element by the first step below the first set point; sensing a second adjusted value of the reflected RF power; comparing the first and the second adjusted values of the reflected RF power; and moving the tunable element to a second set point that corresponds to a position having a lowest adjusted value of the reflected RF power. The method may be repeated until the reflected RF power falls within an acceptable reflected RF power range.

Methods and apparatus for tuning matching networks

Etching of carbonaceous layers with an etchant gas mixture including molecular oxygen (O) and a gas including a carbon sulfur terminal ligand. A high RF frequency source is employed in certain embodiments to achieve a high etch rate with high selectivity to inorganic dielectric layers. In certain embodiments, the etchant gas mixture includes only the two components, COS and O, but in other embodiments additional gases, such as at least one of molecular nitrogen (N), carbon monoxide (CO) or carbon dioxide (CO) may be further employed to etch to carbonaceous layers.

Plasma etching carbonaceous layers with sulfur-based etchants

Growing community of inventors

Saratoga, CA, United States of America

Bryan Liao