Applied Materials, Inc.

Haitao Wang

Kartik Ramaswamy

Chunlei Zhang

Sergio Fukuda Shoji

Jaeyong Cho

Vijay D Parkhe

Hamid Noorbakhsh

Anwar Husain

Kenny Linh Doan

Brad L Mays

Wonseok Lee

Andrew Nguyen

Tza-Jing Gung

Yue Guo

Evans Yip Lee

Reza Sadjadi

Roland R Smith

Yang Yang

Philip Allan Kraus

S M Reza Sadjadi

Valentin Nikolov Todorow

Martin Lee Riker

Ankur Agarwal

Xiangjin Xie

Lawrence Wong

Jie Zhou

Fernando Silveira

Rui Li

Christopher A Rowland

Xue Chang

Travis Koh

Michael G Chafin

Daniel Distaso

Usama Dadu

Maxim Mikhailovich Noginov

Noufal Kappachali

Mark Markovsky

Robert Casanova

Xue Yang

Yida Lin

Kei-Yu Ko

Embodiments provided herein generally include apparatus, plasma processing systems and methods for controlling ion energy distribution in a processing chamber. One embodiment of the present disclosure is directed to a method for plasma processing. The method generally includes: determining a voltage and/or power associated with a bias signal to be applied to a first electrode of a processing chamber, the voltage being determined based on a pressure inside a processing region of the processing chamber such that the voltage is insufficient to generate a plasma inside the chamber by application of the voltage and/or power to the first electrode; applying the first bias signal in accordance with the determined voltage and/or power to the first electrode; and applying a second bias signal to a second electrode of the processing chamber, wherein the second bias signal is configured to generate a plasma in the processing region and the first bias is applied while the second bias is applied.

Ion energy control on electrodes in a plasma reactor

Methods and apparatus for processing a substrate are provided herein. For example, an RF power delivery compensation circuit comprises a first input configured to receive an RF forward power from an RF power source connected to a processing chamber and a second input configured to receive an RF delivered power from a matching network connected between the RF power source and the processing chamber. The RF power delivery compensation circuit calculates an RF forward power compensation factor based on the RF forward power and the RF delivered power for adjusting the RF forward power delivered to the processing chamber during operation.

Methods and apparatus for processing a substrate

An electrostatic chuck is described that has radio frequency coupling suitable for use in high power plasma environments. In some examples, the chuck includes a base plate, a top plate, a first electrode in the top plate proximate the top surface of the top plate to electrostatically grip a workpiece, and a second electrode in the top plate spaced apart from the first electrode, the first and second electrodes being coupled to a power supply to electrostatically charge the first electrode.

High power electrostatic chuck design with radio frequency coupling

Methods and apparatus for dechucking a wafer from a surface of an electrostatic chuck (ESC). In some embodiments, a method comprises reducing a pressure of a gas applied to a backside of the wafer to approximately zero psi; reducing a downward pressure in a cylinder bore of a lifting actuator to approximately atmospheric pressure while a processing volume of the processing chamber is in a vacuum state to create a constant upward force on the wafer, the constant upward force less than a breaking force of the wafer; and sweeping a voltage applied to the ESC to dechuck the wafer; and monitoring a sensor on the lifting actuator that is interposed between a chucking position of the lifting actuator and a transfer position of the lifting actuator to detect when the wafer is dechucked.

Methods and apparatus for dechucking wafers

A workpiece carrier suitable for high power processes is described. It may include a puck to carry the workpiece, a plate bonded to the puck by an adhesive, a mounting ring surrounding the puck and the cooling plate, and a gasket between the mounting ring and the plate, the gasket configured to protect the adhesive.

Workpiece carrier for high power with enhanced edge sealing

Embodiments include an electrostatic chuck assembly having an electrostatic chuck mounted on an insulator. The electrostatic chuck and insulator may be within a chamber volume of a process chamber. In an embodiment, a ground shield surrounds the electrostatic chuck and the insulator, and a gap between the ground shield and the electrostatic chuck provides an environment at risk for electric field emission. A dielectric filler can be placed within the gap to reduce a likelihood of electric field emission. The dielectric filler can have a flexible outer surface that covers or attaches to the electrostatic chuck, or an interface between the electrostatic chuck and the insulator Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Electrostatic chuck assembly having a dielectric filler

Embodiments described herein generally relate to plasma assisted or plasma enhanced processing chambers. More specifically, embodiments herein relate to electrostatic chucking (ESC) substrate supports configured to provide pulsed DC voltage, and methods of applying a pulsed DC voltage, to a substrate during plasma assisted or plasma enhanced semiconductor manufacturing processes.

Substrate support with electrically floating power supply

Process chambers having a tunable showerhead and a tunable liner are disclosed herein. In some embodiments, a processing chamber includes a showerhead; a chamber liner; a first impedance circuit coupled to the showerhead to tune an impedance of the showerhead; a second impedance circuit coupled to the chamber liner to tune an impedance of the chamber liner; and a controller coupled to the first and second impedance circuits to control relative impedances of the showerhead and the chamber liner.

Process chamber having tunable showerhead and tunable liner

A method and apparatus for de-chucking a workpiece is described that uses a swing voltage sequence. One example pertains to a method that includes applying a mechanical force from an electrostatic chuck against the back side of a workpiece that is electrostatically clamped to the chuck, applying a sequence of voltage pulses with a same polarity to the electrodes, each pulse of the sequence having a lower voltage than the preceding pulse, each pulse of the sequence having a lower voltage than the preceding pulse, and determining whether the workpiece is released from the chuck after the sequence of additional voltage pulses and if the workpiece is not released then repeating applying the sequence of voltage pulses.

Method and apparatus for de-chucking a workpiece using a swing voltage sequence

An electrostatic chuck is described to carry a workpiece for processing such as high power plasma processing. In embodiments, the chuck includes a top plate to carry the workpiece, the top plate having an electrode to grip the workpiece, a cooling plate under the top plate to cool the top plate, a gas hole through the cooling plate and the top plate to feed a gas to the workpiece through the top plate, and an aperture-reducing plug in the cooling plate gas hole to conduct gas flow through the hole.

High power electrostatic chuck with aperture-reducing plug in a gas hole

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a showerhead assembly for use in a processing chamber. The showerhead assembly includes a porous insert disposed in a space defined between a gas distribution plate and a base plate to moderate the corrosive radicals resulting from plasma ignition to reduce particle issues and metal contamination in the chamber. The porous insert is a conductive material, such as metal, used to reduce the gap electrical field strength, or may be a dielectric material such as ceramic, polytetrafluoroethylene, polyamide-imide, or other materials with a low dielectric loss and high electrical field strength under conditions of high frequency and strong electric fields. As such, the electrical breakdown threshold is enhanced. The porous insert may reduce and/or eliminate showerhead backside plasma ignition and may include multiple concentric narrow rings that cover gas holes of the gas distribution plate.

Showerhead with reduced backside plasma ignition

Methods and apparatus for measurement of a surface charge profile of an electrostatic chuck are provided herein. In some embodiments, an apparatus for measurement of a surface charge profile of an electrostatic chuck includes: an electrostatic charge sensor disposed on a substrate to obtain data indicative of an electrostatic charge on an electrostatic chuck; and a transmitter disposed on the substrate and having an input in communication with an output of the electrostatic charge sensor to transmit the data.

Real-time measurement of a surface charge profile of an electrostatic chuck

A method, apparatus and system for dechucking a processing object from a surface of an electrostatic chuck (ESC) in a processing chamber can include applying to the ESC for a first time interval, a first dechuck voltage having a substantially equal magnitude and opposite polarity of a chuck voltage chucking the processing object to the surface of the ESC, selecting a second dechuck voltage having an opposite polarity as the first dechuck voltage, linearly sweeping the ESC voltage from the first dechuck voltage to the second dechuck voltage over a second time interval, monitoring the ESC current during the second time interval until a current spike in the ESC current above a threshold is detected, communicating a command to move support pins up to remove the processing object from the ESC surface, and maintaining the second dechuck voltage until the processing object is separated from the surface of the ESC.

Method, apparatus and system for wafer dechucking using dynamic voltage sweeping

Growing community of inventors

Fremont, CA, United States of America

Haitao Wang