Intermolecular, Inc.

Applied Materials, Inc.

Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Sandisk 3d LLC

Other

Hong Sheng Yang

Yun Yu Wang

Imran Hashim

Vidyut Gopal

Hieu T Pham

Takeshi Yamaguchi

Tza-Jing Gung

Tim Minvielle

Dipankar Pramanik

Chi-I Lang

Anantha K Subramani

Keith A Miller

Vincent E Burkhart

Maurice E Ewert

Tony P Chiang

Adolph Miller Allen

Ted Tie Guo

Shouqian Shao

Kent Riley Child

Winsor Lam

Kenneth S Collins

Andrew Nguyen

Hua Chung

Hiroji Hanawa

Xianmin Tang

Kallol Bera

Rongjun Wang

Praburam Gopalraja

Keiji Horioka

Jick M Yu

Lawrence Wong

Roger Alan Lindley

James Tsung

Sang-Ho Yu

Zhendong Hong

Martin Jeff Salinas

Ilyoung R Hong

Cristopher Mark Pavloff

Harish V Penmethsa

Suresh Palanisamy

Ki Hwan Yoon

Yi Tang

Jian-Xin Lei

Apparatus and methods for improving film uniformity in a physical vapor deposition (PVD) process are provided herein. In some embodiments, a PVD chamber includes a pedestal disposed within a processing region of the PVD chamber, the pedestal having an upper surface configured to support a substrate thereon, a first motor coupled to the pedestal, a lid assembly comprising a first target, a first magnetron disposed over a portion of the first target, and in a region of the lid assembly that is maintained at atmospheric pressure, a first actuator configured to translate the first magnetron in a first direction, a second actuator configured to translate the first magnetron in a second direction, and a system controller that is configured to cause the first magnetron to translate along at least a portion of a first path by causing the first actuator and second actuator to simultaneously translate the first magnetron.

Tilted PVD source with rotating pedestal

In one aspect of the invention, a process chamber is provided. The chamber includes a plurality of sputter guns with a target affixed to one end of each of the sputter guns. Each of the plurality of sputter guns is coupled to a first power source. The first power source is operable to provide a pulsed power supply to each of the plurality of sputter guns. The pulsed power supply has a duty cycle that is less than 30%. A substrate support disposed at a distance from the plurality of sputter guns is included. The substrate support is coupled to a second power source. The second power source is operable to bias a substrate disposed on the substrate support, wherein the duty cycle of the second power source is synchronized with a duty cycle of the first power source. A method of performing a deposition process is also included.

High metal ionization sputter gun

Embodiments of the invention include nonvolatile memory elements and memory devices comprising the nonvolatile memory elements. Methods for forming the nonvolatile memory elements are also disclosed. The nonvolatile memory element comprises a first electrode layer, a second electrode layer, and a plurality of layers of an oxide disposed between the first and second electrode layers. One of the oxide layers has linear resistance and substoichiometric composition, and the other oxide layer has bistable resistance and near-stoichiometric composition. Preferably, the sum of the two oxide layer thicknesses is between about 20 &#x212b; and about 100 &#x212b;, and the oxide layer with bistable resistance has a thickness between about 25% and about 75% of the total thickness. In one embodiment, the oxide layers are formed using reactive sputtering in an atmosphere with controlled flows of argon and oxygen.

Transition metal oxide bilayers

In some embodiments of the present invention, a shield is provided wherein the shield comprises a ceramic insulation material. The ceramic insulation material fills the space between the shield and the substrate surface and maintains a gap of less than about 2 mm and advantageously, less than about 1 mm. The shield may further be connected to ground through a low-pass filter operable to prevent the loss of high frequency RF power through the shield to ground but allow the dissipation of charge from the shield to ground through a low frequency or DC signal. In some embodiments, the ceramic insulating material further comprises a removable ceramic insert. The ceramic insert may be used to select the size of the aperture. The ceramic insert further comprises a slot operable to isolate the bottom lip of the ceramic insert from the upper portion for a PVD deposition.

Combinatorial RF bias method for PVD

A sputtering target for a sputtering chamber comprises a backing plate with a sputtering plate mounted thereon. In one version, the backing plate comprises a circular plate having a front surface comprising an annular groove. The sputtering plate comprises a disk comprising a sputtering surface and a backside surface having a circular ridge that is shaped and sized to fit into the annular groove of the backing plate.

Sputtering target having increased life and sputtering uniformity

Apparatuses and methods for high-deposition-rate sputtering for depositing layers onto a substrate are disclosed. The apparatuses generally comprise a process chamber; one or more sputtering sources disposed within the process chamber, wherein each sputtering source comprises a sputtering target; a substrate support disposed within the process chamber; a shield positioned between the sputtering sources and the substrate, the shield comprising an aperture positioned under each sputtering source; and a transport system connected to the substrate support capable of positioning the substrate such that one of a plurality of site-isolated regions on the substrate can be exposed to sputtered material through the aperture positioned under each of the sputtering sources; wherein the spacing between the sputtering target and the substrate is less than 100 mm. The apparatus enables high deposition rate sputtering onto site-isolated regions on the substrate.

Combinatorial processing using high deposition rate sputtering

The present disclosure includes a method for control of a film composition with co-sputter physical vapor deposition. In one implementation, the method includes: positioning first and second PVD guns above a substrate, selecting first and second collimators having first and second sets of physical characteristics, positioning the first and second collimators between the first and second PVD guns and the substrate, sputtering at least one material from the first and second PVD guns through the first and second collimators upon application of a first power and second power, wherein the first PVD gun has a first deposition rate from the first collimator at the first power, and the second PVD gun has a second deposition rate from the second collimator at the second power.

Control of film composition in co-sputter deposition by using collimators

A nonvolatile memory element is disclosed comprising a first electrode, a near-stoichiometric metal oxide memory layer having bistable resistance, and a second electrode in contact with the near-stoichiometric metal oxide memory layer. At least one electrode is a resistive electrode comprising a sub-stoichiometric transition metal nitride or oxynitride, and has a resistivity between 0.1 and 10 &#x3a9;cm. The resistive electrode provides the functionality of an embedded current-limiting resistor and also serves as a source and sink of oxygen vacancies for setting and resetting the resistance state of the metal oxide layer. Novel fabrication methods for the second electrode are also disclosed.

Multifunctional electrode

A continuously variable multi-position magnetron that is rotated about a central axis in back of a sputtering target at a freely selected radius. The position is dynamically controlled from the outside, for example, through a hydraulic actuator connected between a pivoting arm supporting the magnetron and an arm fixed to the shaft, by two coaxial shafts independent controllable from the outside and supporting the magnetron through a frog-leg mechanism, or a cable connected between the pivoting arms and moved by an external slider. The magnetron can be rotated at two, three, or more discrete radii or be moved in a continuous spiral pattern.

Mechanism for continuously varying radial position of a magnetron

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Pleasanton, CA, United States of America

Hong Sheng Yang