Lam Research Corporation

University of Illinois

Jack Chen

Chang Po Liu

Andrew D Bailey, Iii

Jonathan Engel

Yunsang Kim

Gregory Sexton

Ben Mooring

Stephen J Cain

Iqbal A Shareef

Nannan Chen

Adam Liron

J Gary Eden

Sung-Jin Park

Benjamin W Mooring

Keechan Kim

Scott Vernon Wong

Chung Ho Huang

Anthony Paul Van Selow

Zhifang Fan

Xuefeng Hua

Daniel Torres

Goon Heng Wong

Jeffrey Lin

A substrate processing system for processing a substrate includes an upper plasma exclusion zone ring arranged above a substrate during plasma treatment of a bevel edge of the substrate. An upper electrode is arranged above the substrate during plasma treatment. A lower plasma exclusion zone ring is at least partially arranged below the substrate during the plasma treatment. A lower electrode is at least partially arranged below the substrate during plasma treatment. The lower plasma exclusion zone ring includes an annular body with a lower portion at least partially arranged below the substrate and an upwardly projecting flange extending upwardly from the lower portion of the annular body at a location spaced from a radially outer edge of the substrate. The upwardly projecting flange includes an uppermost surface extending to one of a middle portion of the substrate in a vertical direction and above the middle portion of the substrate.

Lower plasma exclusion zone ring for bevel etcher

A system for determining a thickness of a substrate arranged in a processing chamber includes an emitter configured to transmit a signal toward a gap between the substrate and a component of the processing chamber arranged above the substrate, a receiver configured to receive at least a portion of the transmitted signal and generate a measurement signal based on a characteristic of the received portion of the signal, and a system controller configured to receive the measurement signal and selectively adjust a parameter of the processing chamber based on a relationship between values of the measurement signal and at least one of the thickness of the substrate, a width of the gap between the substrate and the component of the processing chamber, and an amount to adjust the parameter of the processing chamber.

In-situ wafer thickness and gap monitoring using through beam laser sensor

A tunable upper plasma exclusion zone (PEZ) ring adjusts a distance of plasma during processing in a processing chamber and includes: a lower surface that includes: a horizontal portion; and an upwardly tapered outer portion that is conical and that extends outwardly and upwardly from the horizontal portion at an upward taper angle of about 5&#xb0; to 50&#xb0; with respect to the horizontal portion, where an outer diameter of the upwardly tapered outer portion is greater than 300 millimeters (mm), and where an inner diameter where the upwardly tapered outer portion begins to extend upwardly is less than 300 mm. A controller is to, during processing of a 300 mm circular substrate, adjust the distance of plasma for treatment of the 300 mm circular substrate at least one of radially inward and radially outward using the tunable upper PEZ ring.

Tunable upper plasma-exclusion-zone ring for a bevel etcher

A bevel etcher for cleaning a bevel edge of a semiconductor substrate with plasma includes a lower electrode assembly having a lower support having a cylindrical top portion. An upper dielectric component is disposed above the lower electrode assembly having a cylindrical bottom portion opposing the top portion of the lower support. A tunable upper plasma exclusion zone (PEZ) ring surrounds the bottom portion of the dielectric component, wherein a lower surface of the tunable upper PEZ ring includes an upwardly tapered outer portion extending outwardly from the bottom portion of the upper dielectric component, wherein a vertical height of an adjustable gap between the lower surface of the upper PEZ ring and an upper surface of a substrate supported on the lower support can be increased or decreased such that the extent of the bevel edge of the substrate to be cleaned by the plasma can respectively be adjusted radially inward or radially outward. At least one radio frequency (RF) power source is adapted to energize process gas into the plasma during a bevel edge cleaning process.

A method for etching a bevel edge of a substrate in a processing chamber is provided. The method includes flowing an inert gas into a center region of the processing chamber defined above a center region of the substrate and flowing a mixture of an inert gas and a processing gas over an edge region of the substrate. The method further includes striking a plasma in the edge region, wherein the flow of the inert gas and the flow of the mixture maintain a mass fraction of the processing gas substantially constant. A processing chamber configured to clean a bevel edge of a substrate is also provided.

Method and apparatus for shaping a gas profile near bevel edge

A method and apparatus for processing a bevel edge is provided. A substrate is placed in a bevel processing chamber and a passivation layer is formed on the substrate only around a bevel region of the substrate using a passivation plasma confined in a peripheral region of the bevel processing chamber. The substrate may undergo a subsequent semiconductor process, during which the bevel edge region of the substrate is protected by the passivation layer. Alternatively, the passivation layer may be patterned using a patterning plasma formed in an outer peripheral region of the processing chamber, the patterning plasma being confined by increasing plasma confinement. The passivation layer on outer edge portion of the bevel region is removed, while the passivation layer on an inner portion of the bevel region is maintained. The bevel edge of the substrate may be cleaned using the patterned passivation layer as a protective mask.

Method and apparatus for processing bevel edge

A method for etching a bevel edge of a substrate is provided. A patterned photoresist mask is formed over the etch layer. The bevel edge is cleaned comprising providing a cleaning gas comprising at least one of a CO, CO, CH, H, NH, CHFand a combination thereof, forming a cleaning plasma from the cleaning gas, and exposing the bevel edge to the cleaning plasma. Features are etched into the etch layer through the photoresist features and the photoresist mask is removed.

Low-K damage avoidance during bevel etch processing

Methods and systems to optimize wafer placement repeatability in semiconductor manufacturing equipment using a controlled series of wafer movements are provided. In one embodiment, a preliminary station calibration is performed to teach a robot position for each station interfaced to facets of a vacuum transfer module used in semiconductor manufacturing. The method also calibrates the system to obtain compensation parameters that take into account the station where the wafer is to be placed, position of sensors in each facet, and offsets derived from performing extend and retract operations of a robot arm. In another embodiment where the robot includes two arms, the method calibrates the system to compensate for differences derived from using one arm or the other. During manufacturing, the wafers are placed in the different stations using the compensation parameters.

Dynamic alignment of wafers using compensation values obtained through a series of wafer movements

A method for aligning a substrate to a process center of a support mechanism is provided. The method includes determining substrate thickness after substrate processing at a plurality of orientations and at a plurality of radial distances from a geometric center of the substrate. The method also includes deriving a set of process rate values from substrate thickness and process duration. The method further includes creating for a process rate an off-centered plot, which represents a substantially concentric circle whose points are a circumference of the off-centered plot having substantially the first process rate. The method yet also includes applying a curve-fitting equation to the off-centered plot to determine a set of parameters. The method yet further includes teaching a set of robot arms the set of parameters, thereby enabling the set of robot arms to align another substrate that is supported by the support mechanism with the process center.

Offset correction techniques for positioning substrates within a processing chamber

An artificial sensor comprises at least one substrate, and a plurality of flow sensors disposed on the at least one substrate for providing a plurality of spatial-temporally varying signals representing a hydrodynamic stimulus. The plurality of flow sensors are spatially distributed on the at least one substrate. A processor is coupled to the plurality of flow sensors for receiving the signals and determining spatial-temporal information from the received signals.

Artificial lateral line

Method and apparatus for shaping gas profile near bevel edge

This invention provides thermal sensors and imagers that are flexible and capable of conforming to curved surfaces and corresponding methods of making and methods of thermal sensing. The thermal sensors contain an array of thermal resistors patterned in a row and column configuration, with each thermal resistor electrically isolated from other thermal resistors within the sensor. Thermal information is obtained from a region by measuring the resistance of each thermal resistor and calculating a thermal resistance for each entry of the array.

Conformal mesh for thermal imaging

Low-k damage avoidance during bevel etch processing

A micromachined artificial sensor comprises a support coupled to and movable with respect to a substrate. A polymer, high-aspect ratio cilia-like structure is disposed on and extends out-of-plane from the support. A strain detector is disposed with respect to the support to detect movement of the support.

Growing community of inventors

Fremont, CA, United States of America

Jack Chen