Applied Materials, Inc.

Hari K Ponnekanti

Kevin P Fairbairn

Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez

Tsutomu Tanaka

Sanjeev Baluja

David Wingto Cheung

Karthik Janakiraman

Mukund Srinivasan

Dale Robert Du Bois

Ganesh Balasubramanian

Jianhua Zhou

Kwangduk Douglas Lee

Prashant Kumar Kulshreshtha

Mario Dave Silvetti

Mukul Kelkar

Alexandros T Demos

Mandyam Sriram

Dmitry A Dzilno

Kalyanjit Ghosh

Michael P Stewart

Jeongmin Lee

Paul Dennis Connors

Venkatanarayana Shankaramurthy

Karthik Thimmavajjula Narasimha

Mohsin Waqar

Jessica E Barzilai

Saptarshi Basu

Liliya Krivulina

Brett Berens

Hiroyuki Ogiso

Rick Gilbert

Christopher F Lane

Anantha K Subramani

Keith A Miller

Praburam Gopalraja

Jun Zhao

Tza-Jing Gung

Jay D Pinson, Ii

Kevin Griffin

Joseph F AuBuchon

Lin Zhang

Kapila P Wijekoon

Juan Carlos Rocha

Prabhat Kumar

Helen R Armer

Chau H Nguyen

Michael Allen Flanigan

Kelly A Colborne

W N (Nick) Taylor

W N(Nick) Taylor

Prajeeth Wilton

Abhijit Basu Mallick

Michael Robert Rice

Vijay D Parkhe

Philip Allan Kraus

Hiroji Hanawa

Dan Maydan

Sasson Roger Somekh

Bok Hoen Kim

Visweswaren Sivaramakrishnan

Ashok K Sinha

Timothy Weidman

William R Livesay

Thomas E Nowak

Karl M Brown

Farhad K Moghadam

Guan Huei See

Ren-Guan Duan

Zheng John Ye

Cheng-Hsiung Matt Tsai

Steven Victor Sansoni

Jonathan Stuart Frankel

Satish Sundar

Mark A Fodor

Shambhu Nath Roy

Ruiping Wang

Dale R Dubois

Sebastien Raoux

Xing Lin

Nirmalya Maity

Sungwon Ha

Khokan Chandra Paul

Inna Shmurun

Rohit Mishra

Ying W Wang

James Omer L'Heureux

Hanish Kumar Panavalappil Kumarankutty

Rupankar Choudhury

Swayambhu Prasad Behera

Uwe Paul Haller

Jason K Foster

S&eacute;bastien Raoux

Xundong Dai

Shekhar Athani

Tristan R Holtam

Kalyan Rapolu

Scott C Woods

Allen Altwood

Malcal Kelka

Sandeep Kumpala

Apparatus for extending substrate queue time for hybrid bonding by preserving plasma activation. In some embodiments, the apparatus may include an environmentally controllable space with a support for holding a die or a substrate, a gas velocity accelerator that recirculates one or more gases laterally across the support, a filter, a humidifier apparatus that is fluidly connected to the environmentally controllable space, wherein the humidifier apparatus enables controllable humidity levels within the environmentally controllable space, a pressurizing apparatus fluidly connected to the humidifier apparatus on an output and fluidly connected to at least one gas supply on an input, a relative humidity (RH) sensor positioned within the environmentally controllable space, and an environment controller in communication with at least the humidifier apparatus and the RH sensor, wherein the environment controller is configured to maintain an RH level of approximately 80% to approximately 95%.

Apparatus for environmental control of dies and substrates for hybrid bonding

Apparatus and methods to process a substrate comprising a gas distribution assembly comprising a plasma process region with an array of individual plasma sources. A controller is connected to the array of individual plasma sources and the substrate support. The controller is configured monitor the position of the at least one substrate and provide or disable power to the individual plasma sources based on the position of the substrate relative to the individual plasma sources.

Dynamic phased array plasma source for complete plasma coverage of a moving substrate

Processing chambers with a plurality of processing stations and individual wafer support surfaces are described. The processing stations and wafer support surfaces are arranged so that there is an equal number of processing stations and heaters. An RF generator is connected to a first electrode in a first station and a second electrode in a second station. A bottom RF path is formed by a connection between a first support surface and a second support surface.

Paired dynamic parallel plate capacitively coupled plasmas

Processing chambers and methods to disrupt the boundary layer are described. The processing chamber includes a showerhead and a substrate support therein. The showerhead and the substrate support are spaced to have a process gap between them. In use, a boundary layer is formed adjacent to the substrate support or wafer surface. As the reaction occurs at the wafer surface, reaction products and byproduct are produced, resulting in reduced chemical utilization rate. The processing chamber and methods described disrupt the boundary layer by changing one or more process parameters (e.g., pressure, flow rate, time, process gap or temperature of fluid passing through the showerhead).

Apparatus and methods for improving chemical utilization rate in deposition process

Methods of depositing a film using a plasma enhanced process are described. The method comprises providing continuous power from a power source connected to a microwave plasma source in a process chamber and a dummy load, the continuous power split into pulses having a first time and a second time defining a duty cycle of a pulse. The continuous power is directed to the microwave plasma source during the first time, and the continuous power is directed to the dummy load during the second time.

RF power source operation in plasma enhanced processes

Processing chambers with a plurality of processing stations and individual wafer support surfaces are described. The processing stations and wafer support surfaces are arranged so that there is an equal number of processing stations and heaters. An RF generator is connected to a first electrode in a first station and a second electrode in a second station. A bottom RF path is formed by a connection between the a first support surface and a second support surface.

Implementations disclosed herein describe a bevel etch apparatus within a loadlock bevel etch chamber and methods of using the same. The bevel etch apparatus has a mask assembly within the loadlock bevel etch chamber. During an etch process, the mask assembly delivers a gas flow to control bevel etch without the use of a shadow frame. As such, the edge exclusion at the bevel edge can be reduced, thus increasing product yield.

Loadlock integrated bevel etcher system

The present disclosure generally relates to methods and apparatus for facilitating electrical feedthrough in plasma processing chambers. The apparatus includes an electrically insulating housing positioned on a backside of the substrate support to contain a secondary plasma therein. The secondary plasma facilitates an electrical connection between the substrate support and electrical power or ground located outside the processing chamber. The methods include utilizing a secondary plasma to electrically couple substrate support to and electrical power or ground located outside the processing chamber.

Rotary plasma electrical feedthrough

A system for processing a substrate is provided including a first planar motor, a substrate carrier, a first processing chamber, and a first lift. The first planar motor includes a first arrangement of coils disposed along a first horizontal direction, a top surface parallel to the first horizontal direction, a first side, a second side. The substrate carrier has a substrate supporting surface parallel to the first horizontal direction. The first processing chamber has an opening to receive a substrate disposed on the substrate carrier. The first lift includes a second planar motor having a second arrangement of coils disposed along the first horizontal direction. A top surface top surface of the second planar motor is parallel to the first horizontal direction. The first lift is configured to move the top surface of the second planar motor between a first vertical location and a second vertical location.

Semiconductor process equipment

Implementations described herein generally relate to metal oxide deposition in a processing chamber. More specifically, implementations disclosed herein relate to a combined chemical vapor deposition and physical vapor deposition chamber. Utilizing a single oxide metal deposition chamber capable of performing both CVD and PVD advantageously reduces the cost of uniform semiconductor processing. Additionally, the single oxide metal deposition system reduces the time necessary to deposit semiconductor substrates and reduces the foot print required to process semiconductor substrates. In one implementation, the processing chamber includes a gas distribution plate disposed in a chamber body, one or more metal targets disposed in the chamber body, and a substrate support disposed below the gas distribution plate and the one or more targets.

Single oxide metal deposition chamber

In one implementation, a sputtering showerhead assembly is provided. The sputtering showerhead assembly comprises a faceplate comprising a sputtering surface comprising a target material and a second surface opposing the sputtering surface, wherein a plurality of gas passages extend from the sputtering surface to the second surface. The sputtering showerhead assembly comprises further comprises a backing plate positioned adjacent to the second surface of the faceplate. The backing plate comprises a first surface and a second surface opposing the first surface. The sputtering showerhead assembly has a plenum defined by the first surface of the backing plate and the second surface of the faceplate. The sputtering showerhead assembly comprises further comprises one or more magnetrons positioned along the second surface of the backing plate.

Sputtering showerhead

The present disclosure generally relates to semiconductor process equipment used to transfer semiconductor substrates between process chambers. More specifically, embodiments described herein are related to systems and methods used to transfer, or swap, semiconductor substrates between process chambers using a transport device that employs at least two blades for the concurrent transfer of substrates between processing chambers.

Wafer swapper

A substrate transport system is disclosed and includes a chamber having an interior wall, a planar motor disposed on the interior wall, and a substrate carrier magnetically coupled to the planar motor. The substrate carrier comprises a base and a substrate supporting surface coupled to a support member extending from the base in a cantilevered orientation.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Hari K Ponnekanti