Ulvac, Inc.

Hiroaki Kawamura

Satoshi Ikeda

Noriaki Tani

Satoru Ishibashi

Atsushi Nakatsuka

Isao Tada

Kazuya Saito

Takayoshi Hirono

Toshihiro Suzuki

Masashi Kikuchi

Takafumi Matsumoto

Kouichi Hanzawa

Hideyuki Ogata

Masatoshi Sato

The object of this invention is to provide a winding type plasma CVD apparatus in which quality of a layer can be made uniform by supplying a reaction gas uniformly to a deposition area of a film, and can perform a self-cleaning process of a deposition portion in the path of deposition onto the film. A film () is supported between a pair of movable rollers () arranged on the upstream side and downstream side of the deposition portion () with regard to the traveling direction of the film, and then the film () is made to travel substantially linearly at the deposition position. Consequently, the distance between a shower plate () and the film () is kept constant, and the quality of the layer is made homogeneous. The film is heated by means of a metal belt () traveling simultaneously on the back side of the film. The moveable rollers () ascend from the deposition position to the self-cleaning position, and the film () can be separated from the shower plate (). Self-cleaning can be carried out in the path of the deposition onto the film by closing the aperture of a mask () with a shutter (), thereby preventing leakage of cleaning gas.

Winding type plasma CVD apparatus

The present invention provides an efficient thin film forming apparatus which is capable of correcting a film thickness so as to take care of a variation in distribution in the film thickness and to take care of the circumferential distribution of the film thickness, as well as a method for forming a thin film using this film forming apparatus. The method comprises the first step of first forming a thin film to a predetermined percentage out of thickness through an openingin a shutter, the second step of then using a film thickness monitorto measure the distribution of the thickness of the thin film formed in the first step, and the third step of reducing a film formation rate by an openingin the shutterbetween a substrateand a sputtering cathodeas compared to that of the first step and correcting the thickness of the thin film by an openingin the first film thickness correcting platebetween the substrateand the sputtering cathodecorresponding to the distribution of the film thickness measured by the film thickness monitorin the second step. Then, the second step is carried out again, during which the film thickness monitoris used to measure the distribution of the thickness of the thin film formed in the third step. Further, the third and second steps are repeatedly carried out.

Thin film forming apparatus and method

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Sammu, Japan

Hiroaki Kawamura