Applied Materials, Inc.

Formfactor, Inc.

Kalyanjit Ghosh

Sanjeev Baluja

Mayur G Kulkarni

Amit Kumar Bansal

Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez

Ganesh Balasubramanian

Tejas Ulavi

Kien Nai Chuc

Yanjie Wang

Shailendra Srivastava

Yuxing Zhang

Sungjin Kim

Yusheng Zhou

Jianhua Zhou

Kwangduk Douglas Lee

Hari K Ponnekanti

Ren-Guan Duan

Prashant Kumar Kulshreshtha

Dale Robert Du Bois

Praket Prakash Jha

Jeongmin Lee

Kaushik Comandoor Alayavalli

Paul Dennis Connors

Venkatanarayana Shankaramurthy

Karthik Thimmavajjula Narasimha

Mohsin Waqar

Saptarshi Basu

Liliya Krivulina

Brett Berens

Hiroyuki Ogiso

Rick Gilbert

Daniel Hwung

Michael Robert Rice

Tuan Anh Nguyen

Todd J Egan

Leon Volfovski

James Matthew Holden

Krishna Nittala

Song-Moon Suh

Richard Giljum

Deenesh Padhi

Christopher Sean Olsen

Kartik Bhupendra Shah

Ajit Balakrishna

David T Blahnik

Umesh M Kelkar

Agus Sofian Tjandra

Zhijun Jiang

Dale R Dubois

Ashutosh Agarwal

Nitin Pathak

Douglas S Ondricek

Shawyon Jafari

Wei Min Chan

Priyanka Dash

Qiang Ma

Lei Guo

Scott McClelland

Paul Hsiao

Gregory Siu

Implementations disclosed herein generally relate to systems and methods of protecting a substrate support in a process chamber from cleaning fluid during a cleaning process. The method of cleaning the process chamber includes positioning in the process chamber a cover substrate above a substrate support and a process kit that separates a purge volume from a process volume. The method of cleaning includes flowing a purge gas in the purge volume to protect the substrate support and flowing a cleaning fluid to a process volume above the cover substrate, flowing the cleaning fluid in the process volume to an outer flow path, and to an exhaust outlet in the chamber body. The purge volume is maintained at a positive pressure with respect to the process volume to block the cleaning fluid from the purge volume.

Method and system for cleaning a process chamber

A modular probe array for making temporary electrical contact to devices under test is provided. The probe array includes multiple probe heads each having a substrate disposed within a mounting block. Improved thermal cycling performance is obtained by using an O-ring between the substrate and the mounting block. Optionally, set screws can be used in combination with the O-ring to set the position of the substrate in its mounting block.

Method of centering probe head in mounting frame

A processing chamber may include a gas distribution member, a substrate support, and a pumping liner. The gas distribution member and the substrate support may at least in part define a processing volume. The pumping liner may define an internal volume in fluid communication with the processing volume via a plurality of apertures of the pumping liner circumferentially disposed about the processing volume. The processing chamber may further include a flow control mechanism operable to direct fluid flow from the internal volume of the pumping liner into the processing volume via a subset of the plurality of apertures of the pumping liner during fluid distribution into the processing volume from the gas distribution member.

Semiconductor processing chambers and methods for cleaning the same

A processing chamber for processing a substrate is disclosed herein. In one embodiment, the processing chamber includes a liner assembly disposed within an interior volume of the processing chamber, and a C-channel disposed in an interior volume of the chamber, circumscribing the liner assembly. In another embodiment, a process kit disposed in the interior volume of the processing chamber is disclosed herein. The process kit includes a liner assembly, a C-channel, and an isolator disposed in the interior volume. The C-channel and the isolator circumscribe the liner assembly. A method for depositing a silicon based material on a substrate by flowing a precursor gas into a processing chamber is also described herein.

Process kit for a high throughput processing chamber

Implementations disclosed herein generally provide a lift pin that can improve the deposition rate and uniform film thickness above lift pin areas. In one implementation, the lift pin includes a first end coupling to a shaft, the first end having a pin head, and the pin head having a top surface, wherein the top surface is planar and flat, and a second end coupling to the shaft, the second end having a flared portion, wherein the flared portion has an outer surface extended along a direction that is at an angle of about 110&#xb0; to about 140&#xb0; with respect to a longitudinal axis of the lift pin.

Enhanced lift pin design to eliminate local thickness non-uniformity in teos oxide films

The present disclosure relates to pumping devices, components thereof, and methods associated therewith for substrate processing chambers. In one example, a pumping ring for substrate processing chambers includes a body. The body includes an upper wall, a lower wall, an inner radial wall, and an outer radial wall. The pumping ring also includes an annulus defined by the upper wall, the lower wall, the inner radial wall, and the outer radial wall. The pumping ring also includes a first exhaust port in the body that is fluidly coupled to the annulus, and a second exhaust port in the body that is fluidly coupled to the annulus. The pumping ring also includes a first baffle disposed in the annulus adjacent to the first exhaust port, and a second baffle disposed in the annulus adjacent to the second exhaust port.

Pumping apparatus and method for substrate processing chambers

Embodiments disclosed herein generally relate to a chamber liner for the high temperature processing of substrates in a processing chamber. The processing chamber utilizes an inert bottom purge flow to shield the substrate support from halogen reactants such that the substrate support may be heated to temperatures greater than about 650 degrees Celsius. The chamber liner controls a flow profile such that during deposition the bottom purge flow restricts reactants and by-products from depositing below the substrate support. During a clean process, the bottom purge flow restricts halogen reactants from contacting the substrate support. As such, the chamber liner includes a conical inner surface angled inwardly to direct purge gases around an edge of the substrate support and to reduce deposition under the substrate support and the on the edge.

Chamber liner for high temperature processing

Implementations disclosed herein describe a bevel etch apparatus within a loadlock bevel etch chamber and methods of using the same. The bevel etch apparatus has a mask assembly within the loadlock bevel etch chamber. During an etch process, the mask assembly delivers a gas flow to control bevel etch without the use of a shadow frame. As such, the edge exclusion at the bevel edge can be reduced, thus increasing product yield.

Loadlock integrated bevel etcher system

Embodiments herein relate to gas distribution apparatuses. In one aspect, the disclosure herein relates to a showerhead including a body having an upper surface and a lower surface. A thermal choke is disposed adjacent a perimeter of the body. The thermal choke includes a plurality of interleaved channels. One or more apertures are disposed between the upper surface and the lower surface of the body.

Horizontal heat choke faceplate design

A faceplate for a processing chamber is disclosed. The faceplate has a body with a plurality of apertures formed therethrough. A flexure is formed in the body partially circumscribing the plurality of apertures. A cutout is formed through the body on a common radius with the flexure. One or more bores extend from a radially inner surface of the cutout to an outer surface of the body. A heater is disposed between flexure and the plurality of apertures. The flexure and the cutout are thermal chokes which limit heat transfer thereacross from the heater.

Faceplate with embedded heater

Method for cleaning a process chamber

Embodiments disclosed herein generally relate to systems and methods to prevent free radical damage to sensitive components in a process chamber and optimizing flow profiles. The processing chamber utilizes a cover substrate on lift pins and an inert bottom purge flow to shield the substrate support from halogen reactants. During a clean process, the cover substrate and the purge flow restricts halogen reactants from contacting the substrate support. The method of cleaning includes placing a cover substrate on a plurality of lift pins that extend through a substrate support in a processing chamber, raising the cover substrate via the lift pins to expose a space between the cover substrate and the substrate support, supplying a halogen containing gas into the processing chamber, supplying a second gas through an opening in the processing chamber, and flowing the second gas through the space between the cover substrate and the substrate support.

Method and system for high temperature clean

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Kalyanjit Ghosh