International Business Machines Corporation

Information Business Machines Corporation

Joseph S Logan

Robert P Westerfield, Jr

Robert E Tompkins

Michael S Barnes

John H Keller

Raymond R Ruckel

William M Holber

Geraldine C Schwartz

John L Mauer, Iv

Charles L Standley

Fletcher Jones

Laura B Rothman

Alfred Grill

Christopher Vincent Jahnes

David William Abraham

John C Forster

Hemantha Kumar Wickramasinghe

Jerome J Cuomo

Klaus D Beyer

John S Lechaton

Joseph M Harvilchuck

James T Yeh

Steve I Petvai

Janos Havas

Paul M Schaible

Michael A Russak

Henry J Grabarz

Bruce Bumble

William C Metzger

Cornel Rosu

Steven M Rossnagel

A dielectric layer for use in a magneto-optic storage medium contains a compound glass of SiO,&mdash;MO,, SiO,&mdash;M,O,, or SiO,&mdash;M,O,and combinations thereof where M is selected from Zr, Ti, Al, Nb, Y, Sn, In, Ta and Sb.

Dielectric-layer for magneto-optic storage media structures

An electrostatic chuck is disclosed that is resistant to the formation of vacuum arcs between the back of the wafer being processed and the body of the chuck. A guard ring surrounds the chuck and floats close to the self-bias potential induced by the plasma on the wafer. The voltage between the wafer and the closest electrode is thereby capacitively divided by the guard ring.

Guard ring electrostatic chuck

An electrostatic chuck has its electrodes biased with respect to the self-bias potential induced by the plasma on the wafer, thereby providing improved resistance to breakdown in spite of variation of the wafer potential during processing. An alternate embodiment further suppresses the formation of vacuum arcs between the back of the wafer being processed and the body of the chuck by the interposition of a conductive guard ring at the self-bias potential, thereby defining an equipotential area between the closest electrode and the wafer.

Electrostatic chuck with reference electrode

An electrostatic chuck is made by a method in which the component parts are machined, then anodized to provide a hard insulating surface, and then assembled in a fixture, to provide a planar surface for wafer support that retains superior insulating properties; gas may be fed from the rim only, diffusing within interstices between the clamping surface and the wafer and maintaining a desired pressure by flowing radially through an impedance determined by the average spacing between clamping surface and wafer, thereby providing uniform pressure across the clamping surface without the use of elastomeric seals.

Method of making electrostatic chuck with oxide insulator

An electrostatic chuck has its electrodes biased with respect to the self-bias potential induced by the plasma on the wafer, thereby providing improved resistance to breakdown in spite of variation of the wafer potential during processing, further suppressing the formation of vacuum arcs between the back of the wafer being processed and the body of the chuck by the interposition of a conductive guard ring at the self-bias potential, thereby defining an equipotential area between the closest electrode and the wafer.

An electrostatic chuck suppresses the formation of vacuum arcs between the back of the wafer being processed and the body of the chuck by the interposition of a guard ring that floats close to the self-bias potential induced by the plasma on the wafer, thereby capacitively dividing the voltage between the wafer and the closest electrode.

An electron cyclotron resonance plasma heating apparatus system and process in which microwave energy is transmitted directly in an axial direction through an evacuated chamber to generate energetic electrons. These energetic electrons spiral around the magnetic field lines formed by the solenoid and spiral substantially parallel to the axis. A metal atom vapor source transmits the metal atom vapor into the chamber through a housing port in the chamber wall. The metal atom vapor source in the housing is out of the line of sight of the substrate. The metal atoms are ionized by the energized electrons, and these ionized metal atoms are confined to the plasma column substantially free of neutral atoms as such ionized metal approaches and contacts the substrate in said evacuated chamber. In this way, the ionized metal atoms substantially avoid contact with the wall of chamber. A sputter target of a second metal may be placed in the plane of the substrate and a bias voltage applied to the target. Atoms of the second metal are then sputtered off and ionized by the plasma and are deposited on the substrate with the first metal ions.

Method and apparatus for filing high aspect patterns with metal

Multi-wavelength optical thermometry provides for non-contact measurement of the temperature of a sample where the front surface and the back surface of the sample are used in a interferometer to measure changes in optical path length. Laser beams at two different wavelengths are used and the beam phase of the two resultant interference signals is used to unambiguously measure the path length change over a broad temperature range.

Multi-wavelength optical thermometry

Electron cyclotron apparatus is described in which the locus of cyclotron resonance is scanned away from and toward the axis of a magnetic field by varying the strength of the magnetic field, the frequency of electromagnetic waves passing along its axis, or both.

Scanned electron cyclotron resonance plasma source

An electrostatic chuck 8 assembly includes, from top to bottom: a top multilayer ceramic insulating layer 10; an electrostatic pattern layer 12 having a conductive electrostatic pattern 16 disposed on a multilayer ceramic substrate; a multilayer ceramic support layer 20; and, a heat sink base 30 having a backside cooling channels machined therein. Layers 12, 12 and 20 are bonded together using multilayer ceramic techniques and the heatsink base 30 is brazed to the bottom of the multilayer ceramic support layer 20.

Ceramic electrostatic chuck

An electrostatic chuck 40 assembly includes, from top to bottom: a top isolation layer 42; an electrostatic pattern layer 44 comprised of an electrically conductive electrostatic pattern 46 disposed on a substrate 45; a heating layer 50 comprised of an electrically conductive heating pattern 54 disposed on a substrate 52; a support 60; and, a heat sink base 70 having backside cooling and insulating channels 78, 80 provided therein.

Temperature cycling ceramic electrostatic chuck

An electrostatic chuck is provided with an electrode split into two sections. The separate sections are joined through a tapered joint and bonded using epoxy. An insulator electrically separates the two sections and covers the top of the joined sections to form a clamping surface. The geometry of the electrode forms three annular regions, dividing the clamping surface into two equal areas distributed symmetrically. Moreover, the split-ring electrostatic chuck just described is fabricated by forming the two, separate electrodes; coating the separate electrodes with an insulator; joining the electrodes; machining the joint, top surface of the electrodes to form a single, co-planar, flat, smooth surface; and applying an insulator to that top surface.

Method for fabricating a split-ring electrostatic chuck

Electrostatic chuck having tapered electrodes

A high rate, low contamination, non-reactive sputter etching or deposition apparatus is disclosed herein. The apparatus is comprised of a pair of parallel plate electrodes, cathode and substrate and an additional or wall electrode means surrounding said other electrode means. The wall electrode can be made to be coplanar with said other electrodes and the area of said electrodes are designed so that the wall electrode is resputtered eliminating contamination. The electrodes are housed in a vacuum chamber with inlet means for introducing a non-reactive gas into said chamber. Means are provided for supplying said RF voltage to said electrodes both in and out of phase and for varying the magnitude of the substrate electrode RF voltage with respect to the magnitude of the cathode voltage. Thick insulator rings are used to reduce stray capacitance between the wall electrode and ground whereby the outer chamber (normally grounded) forms a low inductance path between the cathode electrode and acts as a shield for the inner chamber RF potential.

Low contamination RF sputter deposition apparatus

A metallic hollow cathode electrode structure for use in a RF-RIE sputter/etch system. The electrode defines a critical aspect ratio hollow cathode volume. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the electrode structure may consist of two closely spaced metal elements separated by a distance of a few centimeters. The elements are electrically and structurally connected by supports around their outer rim. An RF voltage is applied between the improved hollow cathode electrode structure and an evacuated chamber containing same through a suitable matching network. A plasma gas is supplied to the system from a point outside the electrodes and a suitable pumping system is used to maintain operating pressures in the 0.1 to 400 millitorr range. Samples to be sputtered are then placed on either of the inside electrode surfaces for sputter/etching. The aspect ratio (longest dimension of one of the elements/spacing between the elements) should be at least 4. According to a further embodiment, the hollow cathode electrode structure is characterized by a single plate having a plurality of cylindrical chambers or holes therein, each hole producing a hollow cathode glow when the system is energized. The aspect ratio (largest dimension of the chamber cross-section/depth of the chamber) for this embodiment should be at least 1.5.

Growing community of inventors

Poughkeepsie, NY, United States of America

Joseph S Logan