Applied Materials, Inc.

Charles C Harris

Mei Yin Chang

Semyon Sherstinsky

James F Roberts

Simon W Tam

Karl Anthony Littau

Ashok K Sinha

Alfred W Mak

Dale Robert Du Bois

Virendra V Rana

Alan F Morrison

Ronald Lloyd Rose

Susan G Telford

Meng Chu Tseng

Wen Teh Chang

A compound clamp ring secures a semiconductor wafer having a wafer flat portion to a wafer pedestal during wafer processing while maintaining a continuous seal between the wafer edges and the wafer pedestal to prevent leakage of coolant gases circulated at the backside of the wafer into the process environment. The clamp ring has an annular wafer clamp surface adapted to press a round portion of the wafer into sealing abutment with the wafer pedestal. A cavity formed in the clamp ring securely receives a comb-like array of resilient flexures that are adapted to apply a yieldable bias to the flat portion of the wafer to complete the seal between the wafer and the pedestal at the flat portion of the wafer; and encloses the flexures to shield the flexures from process gases.

Compound clamp ring for semiconductor wafers

A clamping ring having a downwardly extending finger that mates with a pocket in the periphery of a susceptor for supporting a wafer in a chemical vapor deposition chamber, provides alignment of the clamping ring, the wafer and the susceptor. A source of inert gas connected to the pocket provides a positive pressure in the pocket that prevents reactive gas in the chamber from reaching the edge and backside of the wafer. A source of vacuum connected to the susceptor support surface ensures good contact between the wafer and the susceptor. The clamping ring also has a lip extending over the top surface of the wafer having a rear surface that has a negative angle with respect to the upper surface of the clamping ring, providing a knife edge seal to the wafer, reducing the area of contact between the clamping ring and the wafer and providing a reduced area of thermal contact between the clamping ring and the wafer.

Clamping ring and susceptor therefor

An improved clamping ring apparatus is disclosed comprising a clamping ring means for yieldably engaging a generally circular semiconductor wafer to peripherally clamp the wafer to a support pedestal to provide a peripheral seal between the wafer and the surface of the pedestal facing the wafer, adjacent the generally circular end edge of the wafer by providing a central generally circular opening in the clamping ring and a series of slots which radially extend outwardly from the central opening in the clamping ring means to thereby divide the inner portion of the clamping ring means into a series of yieldable fingers inwardly extending toward the central opening in the clamping ring means. In one embodiment, the sidewalls of the slots are slanted with respect to the planar surface of the clamping ring means at an angle sufficient, with respect to the thickness of the clamping ring means and the width of the slot,, to prevent a ray or a particle from a plasma, traveling in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the surface of the clamping ring means from striking surfaces underlying the clamping ring means, through the slot.

Clamping ring apparatus for processing semiconductor wafers

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Los Gatos, CA, United States of America

Charles C Harris