Hitachi, Ltd.

Anelva Corporation

Hideki Tateishi

Susumu Aiuchi

Shigeru Kobayashi

Tsuneaki Kamei

Katsuo Abe

Hiroshi Nakamura

Nobuyuki Takahashi

Yasumichi Suzuki

Masao Sakata

Takayuki Watanabe

Mitsuaki Horiuchi

Shinji Sasaki

Hiroshi Saito

Hideaki Shimamura

Tamotsu Shimizu

Ryuji Sugimoto

Katsuhiro Iwashita

Masashi Nakatsukasa

A sputtering process and an apparatus for carrying out the same for forming a film of a film forming material over the surface of a substrate. A target formed of the film forming material is held on a sputtering electrode receiving a voltage, and the substrate is disposed at a predetermined distance and opposite to the target. A high-density plasma is produced by producing a cusp field between the target and the substrate and a bias voltage is applied to the surface of the substrate to make ions of the high-density plasma fall on the surface of the substrate in order to make the particles of the film forming material sputtered from the target deposit in a thin film over the surface of the substrate.

Sputtering process and an apparatus for carrying out the same

A continuous sputtering apparatus comprising a main vacuum chamber, one loading station and a plurality of process stations capable of having their pressures controlled separately. The process station includes a sub vacuum chamber capable of being in communication with the main vacuum chamber through an opening and an evacuation port. The loading station and the process stations are arranged to be spaced with equal angles. Substrate holders are provided to face the stations and are rotated by said equal angle in a time. The substrate holder opens and closes the opening of the sub vacuum chamber to serve as a gate valve.

Continuous sputtering apparatus

A pair of magnets for producing a mirror magnetic field are disposed outside of an electrode structure carrying a target. Microwaves from a microwave source are introduced toward and into a space defined by the mirror magnetic field for generating high-density plasma. While maintaining this high-density plasma over a wide area of the surface of the target, an electric field substantially perpendicular to the surface of the target is applied for sputtering of the target material. The optimized conditions for plasma generation can be selected when the high-density plasma formed outside of a processing chamber is guided to migrate toward an area above the target in the processing chamber. Capability of sputtering of the material from the entire surface of the target increases the rate of film deposition on a substrate and improves the target utilization rate (the quantity of the material deposited on the substrate/the usable area of the target).

Method and apparatus for sputtering

An apparatus for performing continuous treatment in vacuum including an inlet chamber, a first intermediate chamber, at least one vacuum treating chamber, a second intermediate chamber and a withdrawing chamber arranged in the indicated order in a direction in which base plates are successively transferred. An opening device normally closed and opened when a base plate is transferred therethrough is mounted on a wall at the inlet of the inlet chamber, between the adjacent chambers and on a wall at the outlet side of the withdrawing chamber. A conveyor device for conveying each base plate in a horizontal direction through the opening device is mounted in each of the chambers, and an evacuating device is also mounted in each chamber. A base plate storing device for storing a plurality of base plates in a magazine is mounted in the first and second intermediate chambers. At least one vacuum treating device is mounted in the vacuum treating chamber.

Apparatus for performing continuous treatment in vacuum

A sputtering apparatus of the planar magnetron type is disclosed, in which a low-pressure gas is ionized by glow discharge, ions in the plasma are accelerated by a voltage applied between a cathode and an anode to bombard a target structure, atoms or particles of a target material sputtered from the planar target plate by the bombardment of ions are deposited on a substrate disposed on the anode side, and thus a thin film made of the same material as the target material is formed on the substrate. In view of the facts that lines of magnetic flux generated by a single magnetic flux source does not link each other and the Maxwell stress, the target structure includes the planar target plate and a magnetic flux source having at least three pole pieces in an arrangement that the planar target plate is disposed between the anode and the magnetic flux source, and the amount of magnetic flux starting from a portion of the pole pieces is controlled to control the amount of magnetic flux (or the flux density) existing at the remaining pole pieces and the magnetic flux distribution above the planar target plate, thereby controlling the position of a region where the plasma is formed.

Sputtering cathode structure for sputtering apparatuses, method of

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Yokohama, Japan

Hideki Tateishi